 from the ragged people: »Where's our soup?«
    Jimmie and a companion sat in a rear seat and commented upon the things that
didn't concern them, with all the freedom of English tourists. When they grew
thirsty and went out their minds confused the speaker with Christ.
    Momentarily, Jimmie was sullen with thoughts of a hopeless altitude where
grew fruit. His companion said that if he should ever meet God he would ask for
a million dollars and a bottle of beer.
    Jimmie's occupation for a long time was to stand on street-corners and watch
the world go by, dreaming blood-red dreams at the passing of pretty women. He
menaced mankind at the intersections of streets.
    On the corners he was in life and of life. The world was going on and he was
there to perceive it.
    He maintained a belligerent attitude toward all well-dressed men. To him
fine raiment was allied to weakness, and all good coats covered faint hearts. He
and his order were kings, to a certain extent, over the men of untarnished
clothes, because these latter dreaded, perhaps, to be either killed or laughed
at.
    Above all things he despised obvious Christians and ciphers with the
chrysanthemums of aristocracy in their button-holes. He considered himself above
both of these classes. He was afraid of nothing.
    When he had a dollar in his pocket his satisfaction with existence was the
greatest thing in the world. So, eventually, he felt obliged to work. His father
died and his mother's years were divided up into periods of thirty days.
    He became a truck driver. There was given to him the charge of a
pains-taking pair of horses and a large rattling truck. He invaded the turmoil
and tumble of the down-town streets and learned to breathe maledictory defiance
at the police who occasionally used to climb up, drag him from his perch and
punch him.
    In the lower part of the city he daily involved himself in hideous tangles.
If he and his team chanced to be in the rear he preserved a demeanor of
serenity, crossing his legs and bursting forth into yells when foot passengers
took dangerous dives beneath the noses of his champing horses. He smoked his
pipe calmly for he knew that his pay was marching on.
    If his charge was in the front and if it became the key-truck of chaos, he
entered terrifically into the quarrel that was raging to and fro among the
drivers on their high seats, and sometimes roared oaths and violently got
himself arrested.
    After a time his sneer grew so that it turned
