THE ARTFUL TRAMP.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 46, 18 November 1893, Page 432

THE ARTFUL TRAMP.

* Mornin’, miss. Is yer mother in ?’ asked a tramp of the track-walking type to a lady who responded to his knock at the kitchen door. • I am the lady of the house, sir,’ said the plain faced woman he had addressed, and who was about forty years old, and had a wart on her nose. ‘ W-w-what,’said the tramp. ’You don’t mean to tell me yer old enough to be married ?’ ‘ Why, to be sure,’ said the woman, ‘ and I’ve got children old enough to marry.’ ‘Well, well, well! I’ve seen a heap o’ women in my time,’ said he, ‘ but I never seen one as youthful lookin’ as you air who was the head of a family. I kin hardly believe my own eyes. An yer the woman o’ the house air ye ?’ ‘ Yes, sir,’ said she brushing her tangled hair out of her eyes and smoothing the wrinkles out of her apron." ‘ I’d never have guessed you was married,’ said he. ‘ An’ ye have charge o’ the cookin’ and bakin’, and so on? Well, that beats me,' said he. ‘ Just to think that a woman I’d take to be only a mere girl is at the head of a fine house like this, an’ does her own cookin’. I s’pose you know then if there was anything left over from breakfast, don't ye-’ ‘ Yes, sir, there was,’ she replied. ‘ Well, it seems as though I’m askin’ a favour of a young person not old enough to be in authority, but could you gimme a bit to eat ?’ he inquired. A half hour later when he appeared on the street with a square meal safely stowed away beneath his vest, there was a smile on his face that reached from the torn rim of ,his hat clear down to his soiled shirt collar.

Mrs Slimson : ‘Why, Willie, whatever are you doing?’ Willie : ‘ Oh, never mind, ma. I’m just chopping the heels off pa’s slippers, ’cause they hurt.’