The Road. "A Novel of Endurance"

It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time, and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes that made the town a "hungry" town. They "battered" the back doors of the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive. A hard town for "scoffings, " was what the hoboes called it at that time.
I know that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I could "throw my feet" with the next one when it came to "slamming a gate for a "poke-out" or a "set-down, " "or hitting for a light piece" on the street. Why, I was so hard put in that town, one day, that I gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant millionnaire. The train started as I made the platform, and I headed for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and reaching for me.
It was a dead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for formalities. "Gimme a quarter to eat on, " I blurted out. And as I live, that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me . just . precisely . a quarter.