“Oh! no apologies needed, old chap,” said Thad, quickly.  “We had our lunch only an hour or so ago and couldn’t take a bite to save us now.  But say everything seems mighty good, if the smell counts for much.  So pitch right in and fill up.  We’ll continue to sit here and chat with you, if you don’t mind, Bill.”

“That’s all right, governor, only my name don’t happen to be Bill, even if I belong to the tribe of Weary Willies.  I’m known far and wide as Wandering Lu; because, you see, I’ve traveled all over the whole known world, and been in every country the sun shines on.  Just come from the oil regions down in Texas, because, well, my health is failing me, and I’m afraid I’m going into a decline.”

At that he started to coughing at a most tremendous rate.  Thad looked sympathetic.

“You certainly do seem to have a terribly bad cold, Lu,” he told the tramp, as the other drew out a suspicious looking red handkerchief that had seen better days, to wipe the tears from his eyes, after he had succeeded in regaining his breath, following the coughing spell.

The man put a dirty hand in the region of his heart and winced.

“Hurts most around my lungs,” he said, “and mebbe I’ve got the con.  I spent some time in a camp where fifty poor folks was sleeping under canvas down in Arizona, and I’m a whole lot afraid I may have caught the disease there.  So, being afraid my time would soon come I just made up my mind to look up a sister of mine that I ain’t heard a word from for twenty years or more, and see if she was in a position to support me the short time I’d have to live.”

Thad heard this with evident interest.  At the same time it occurred to him the stalwart tramp was hardly a fit subject for a speedy death; indeed, he looked as though he might hold out for a good many years still, except when he fell into one of those coughing spells, and seemed to be racked from head to foot with the exertion.

Hugh saw that the fellow had an engaging manner, and a smooth tongue.  He was trying to make out just what sort of a man this same Lu might be, if one could read him aright.  Was he crooked, and inclined to evil ways; or, on the other hand, could he be taken at face value and set down as a pretty square sort of a fellow?

“Listen, young fellers,” remarked the still eating hobo, later on, “didn’t you tell me you lived in the place called Scranton, when you’re to home?”

“Yes, that’s so,” Thad assured him.  “Know anybody there, Lu, and do you want us to take him your best compliments?”

The tramp grinned amiably.

“I reckon you’re something of a joker, younker,” he went on to say.  “Now, about the folks in Scranton, I suppose you boys know about everybody in town?”

“Well, hardly that,” Hugh told him, “since Scranton is a place of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, and new people are constantly coming in.”