And he had heard somewhere that Batty was a sort of Wandering Jew, patroling the whole length of the continent with his broken plates and his gas-pipe frame and his glue-bottles, migrating restlessly from city to city, striking out as far west as San Francisco, swinging round by Denver and New Orleans and then working his way northward again up to St. Louis and Chicago and Pittsburgh.
Remembering these things the idle young "flatty" turned and looked at the green-coated and sunken-shouldered figure, touched into some rough pity by the wordless pathos of an existence which seemed without aim or reason.
"Batty, how long 're yuh going to peddle glue, anyway?" he suddenly asked.
The glue-peddler, watching the crowds that drifted by him, did not answer. He did not even look about at his interrogator.
"D' yuh have to do this?" asked the wide-shouldered youth in uniform.
"No," was the peddler's mild yet guttural response.
The other prodded with his night-stick
