“To which?”

“To bull der pums—­eferybody mitout fisible means.  Dirty days is der price, or fifteen tollars.”

“Is dat straight, or a game you givin’ me?”

“It’s der pest tip you efer had.  I gif it to you pecause I pelief you are not so bad as der rest.  Und pecause you gan visl ’Der Freischuetz’ bezzer dan I myself gan.  Don’t run against any more bolicemans aroundt der corners, but go away from town a few tays.  Good-pye.”

So Madame Orleans had at last grown weary of the strange and ruffled brood that came yearly to nestle beneath her charitable pinions.

After the big policeman had departed, Whistling Dick stood for an irresolute minute, feeling all the outraged indignation of a delinquent tenant who is ordered to vacate his premises.  He had pictured to himself a day of dreamful ease when he should have joined his pal; a day of lounging on the wharf, munching the bananas and cocoanuts scattered in unloading the fruit steamers; and then a feast along the free-lunch counters from which the easy-going owners were too good-natured or too generous to drive him away, and afterward a pipe in one of the little flowery parks and a snooze in some shady corner of the wharf.  But here was a stern order to exile, and one that he knew must be obeyed.  So, with a wary eye open for the gleam of brass buttons, he began his retreat toward a rural refuge.  A few days in the country need not necessarily prove disastrous.  Beyond the possibility of a slight nip of frost, there was no formidable evil to be looked for.

However, it was with a depressed spirit that Whistling Dick passed the old French market on his chosen route down the river.  For safety’s sake he still presented to the world his portrayal of the part of the worthy artisan on his way to labour.  A stall-keeper in the market, undeceived, hailed him by the generic name of his ilk, and “Jack” halted, taken by surprise.  The vender, melted by this proof of his own acuteness, bestowed a foot of Frankfurter and half a loaf, and thus the problem of breakfast was solved.

When the streets, from topographical reasons, began to shun the river bank the exile mounted to the top of the levee, and on its well-trodden path pursued his way.  The suburban eye regarded him with cold suspicion, individuals reflected the stern spirit of the city’s heartless edict.  He missed the seclusion of the crowded town and the safety he could always find in the multitude.

At Chalmette, six miles upon his desultory way, there suddenly menaced him a vast and bewildering industry.  A new port was being established; the dock was being built, compresses were going up; picks and shovels and barrows struck at him like serpents from every side.  An arrogant foreman bore down upon him, estimating his muscles with the eye of a recruiting-sergeant.  Brown men and black men all about him were toiling away.  He fled in terror.