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He added, "Trigger doesn't know yet that I was a sports bum in my youth." "Really?" Trigger said. He nodded. "Come from a long line of sports bums, as a matter of fact. But I broke tradition went into business for myself finally. Nowadays I'm old and soft. Eh, Belchy?" The two great pals, sitting side by side, dug elbows at each other and ha-ha-ha'd. Trigger winced.
"What did I do?" demanded Beany. "That's all right," said the Sergeant. "I have my eyes all right, all right. You tell the Colonel or I will. Those bums give you a look, and threw a fit. Both of 'em. I saw their eyes stick out a yard. They acted like you was a ghost. You do look pretty pale, at that! Well, I bet you've done for one of them. I never saw a harder fit in my life.
That all might view the process, he had it mounted high from the basement, behind a broad plate-glass show window set in the front wall, a highly unstrategic position, as McGuire Ellis pointed out. "Suppose," said he, "a horse runs wild and makes a dive through that window? Or a couple of bums get shooting at each other, and a stray bullet comes whiffling through the glass and catches young Mr.
"Minute later I was asleep, but didn't seem my eyes were more'n close when he gives me a shake. "'Five o'clock, says he, 'and time to start. "We'd gone to bed about twelve but I wasn't going to let him put anything over on me. He bums a breakfast off the hotel, stalls 'em on his bill, and then we hit the road, him singing every step of the way and me near dead for sleep.
O'Brien's eyes hardened as they contemplated the distant teamster. "Say," he went on, after a brief pause, "there are some low-down bums in this city. There's Shorty Solon, the Jew boy. He's wanted across the border fer shootin' up a bank manager, and gettin' off with the cash.
"What do you think of my friends?" he asked. "I think you're throwing your life away!" "Do you? How do you make it out?" "Because they're an utterly hopeless crowd! Look at 'em poor devils they look like a lot of Bowery bums!" "Yes they look like a lot of bums. And they feed all the fires at sea." "Are they all like these?" I demanded. "No better dressed," he answered.
I would do it for Bells. I like him. Good men are scarce. The bums and loafers are always easy to get. There isn't a mine around here that isn't looking for good men, since they made that discovery over in the flat. Most of them broke to the placer ground. Wages are nothing when there's a chance for better."
"God! but you're wise with your talk of blood-poisonin'! You bums from the Ditch give me more trouble and do more kickin' than all my private patients put together. What do you want for a dollar a month" she sneered "a special nurse? A shot in the arm will shut your mouth till morning anyhow."
"'In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man; and I, for one, am only too glad that the man who has the rare skill to season his message with interesting reading matter and who shows both purpose and pep in handling his literary wares has a chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks a year, to mingle with the biggest executives on terms of perfect equality, and to show as big a house and as swell a car as any Captain of Industry!
In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers would often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and look miserable to attract custom.
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