The best hobo jokes.

Well, play with your hobo brides if you like, Honora, but don't look for gratitude or rectitude or any beatitude.

" The manager of the "Golden Rule Hotel" raked up a couple of outfits of cast-off hobo clothing, and coaxed Joe and Jim into dressing themselves into these, and then advised the twins to quickly find employment

It was the oft-repeated story of a runaway boy, hailing from a good family, drifting into hobo-companionship with all the rum, filth and crime that such association implies, and ended by telling that on this day, after having so wantonly wasted the best years of his life, he had made up his mind to end it all by placing his head upon the rails.

"Hope you're taking guns along, because if you do run across them hobo fellers you'll be apt to need them right bad," Larry went on to say, also looking downcast at having to miss all the sport simply because Nature had never intended him for an aviator, as he was inclined to get dizzy when looking down from any height.

This dinner, which was another mulligan, was placed in the center of the table in the same pot in which it had been cooked, and each member of the gang, just as if they were still camping about a hobo fire in the woods, by means of a small wooden paddle pulled as much of the mulligan as he desired, onto a tin plate, that had never been touched by dishwater, but had only been scraped since the day it arrived at the rooms.

He was always a crooked sort of feller, and after that just boozed around, joined in with hobo gangs, and they believe touched up a few jobs himself.

" "Well, this is like a hobo gettin' up his nerve to ask for a san'wich, and havin' the lady of the house come runnin' with a hot apple pie.

" This last statement settled the whole matter, for the twins felt that a place in which prayer meetings were held and holy hymns chanted could never be an unfit place for the likes of them, and instead of landing in a "hobo-joint" as they had first feared, they concluded that they had actually struck a home.

Jim pleaded to be permitted at least until the noon hour to sell more needle cases, and his jocker, pleased to see the the lad so anxious to support an able-bodied hobo loafer in idleness, consented and gave him another supply.

Joe's second hobby was to study the hobo monickers written upon or carved into the railroad company's property.

[Illustration: After supper Jim watched a hobo paint acid into the dreadful sore upon Snippy's arm and heard the little lad shriek with pain when the fluid ate into his quivering flesh.]

When the train, which proved to be a long string of empty, open box cars, pulled southward, after having filled its engine's tender at the water tank, Slippery and Joe had safely stowed themselves away in one of the "empties" and were soon rolling on towards Chicago, and had become a most contented pair of hobo-partners.

Certainly if the hunt was only kept up in automobiles, that required fairly decent roads to allow of their getting along, there was not much chance of the authorities ever discovering the concealed hobo thieves; for they could not get within a mile of the shore up there at Norton's Point by such methods.

I caught the hobo tryin' to rob a couple of wimmin over by the Notch.

By this time the "mulligan" was ready to serve and they dined upon the savory hobo-stew, and after they had filled their inner selves, according to hobo usage they stretched themselves in the shade of the trees to take their after-dinner rest.

But Andy, neither of us said anything when Larry told about that hobo aviator named Casper Blue; yet he answered the description the bank watchman gave of the smaller man who had a stiff arm.

In the evening after supper had been served and things had somewhat quieted down in the rooms, almost dumfounded by surprise Jim watched Snippy's jocker paint a strong solution of lye into the dreadful soreknown in the hobo vernacular as a "jigger"upon the road kid's arm.