Judging him by his outer garments, Jimmie
guessed he was a Fifth Avenue tailor; he might be even a haberdasher.
Jimmie continued. He lived, he explained, with his mother at One Hundred
and Forty-sixth Street; Sadie, his sister, attended the public school;
he helped support them both, and he now was about to enjoy a well-earned
vacation camping out on Hunter's Island, where he would cook his own
meals and, if the mosquitoes permitted, sleep in a tent.
"And you like that?" demanded the young man. "You call that fun?"
"Sure!" protested Jimmie. "Don't _you_ go camping out?"
"I go camping out," said the Good Samaritan, "whenever I leave New
York."
Jimmie had not for three years lived in Wall Street not to understand
that the young man spoke in metaphor.
"You don't look," objected the young man critically, "as though you were
built for the strenuous life."
Jimmie glanced guiltily at his white knees.
"You ought ter see me two weeks from now," he protested. "I get all
sunburnt and hard--hard as anything!"
The young man was incredulous.
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