A Grip.

As a general thing grip folk are very careful about fooling around the police station, but in this "vale of tears" it is not an unfrequent error to miss the path of safety and stray into the fold of the wicked. Friday afternoon when all was quiet on the avenue, a Gripper made his way down Felix, and would perhaps have journeyed on to the Union depot had not his attention been arrested by observing city Marshal Ritchie leading a "forlorn hope" into the Recorder's sanctum. Arriving at the court room, and finding the Recorder occupied for the time being, the Marshal began to question his charge, when the following interesting dialogue ensued, the questions being asked by the Marshal and answers returned by the man he had under arrest:

"From whence came you?"

"From a town down the river, to the west, called Atchison."

"What's your business here?"

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"To learn to subdue my appetite and sponge my living from an indulgent public."

"Then you are a regular tramp, I presume?"

"I am so taken and accepted wherever I go."

"How do you know yourself to be a tramp?"

"In seeking food, by being often denied, but ready to try again."

"Will you be off or from?"

"With your permission I'll be off very quick."

"Of what are you in pursuit?"

"Work, which by my own endeavours and the assistance of others I hope I shall never be able to find."

"Where were you made a tramp?"

"In a regularly organized country, where only the rich enjoy life, and the labouring man was considerably below par."

"How were you prepared to become a tramp?"

"By being divested of everything I possessed of value, reduced to poverty and thrown upon the world barefoot and hungry."

"How gained you admission to this town?"

"By the assistance of a. tie pass over the Missouri Pacific."

"Had you the pass?"

"I had it not; my chum had it for me."

"Whither art thou travelling?"

"As soon as I get out of your clutches I'll journey eastward, and that too, at a lively pace."

"On entering this town how were you received?"

"On the end of a policeman's billy, applied to my naked off ear, which was to teach me that, as the ear is the most tender organ in cold weather, so might the recollection thereof ever be to my mind and conscience should I again attempt to enter a strange town without the necessary money to pay for a night's lodging."

"What did the policeman say to you?"

"He asked me, ' Who comes there?'"

"Your answer?"

"A poor weary traveller, who has not tasted food for days, and though he is short on funds he is long on walk, and will travel many blocks further upon the assurance of being able to encounter a free lunch."

"What followed?"

"I was directed to wait with patience until the City Marshal could be informed of my deplorable condition, and his answer returned."

"What answer did he return?"

"Let him enter the station and we will endeavour to feed him and permit him to work out his board bill in the zoological garden spot."

Here the city Marshal discovered that he and his ragged partner had an audience, and the "peace keeper" murmured, as the two moved on .—"That's a Gripper; let's go."