The Gay-Cat: The Story of a Road-Kid and His Dog

."The Frisco Kid ran away from home years ago to follow a circus. The bravado of his words is the cry of all lost boys who have listened to the wanderlust that sends them wandering over the face of the world, homeless, at times half starved, but with the light of adventure never dimmed in their eyes. The kid called his dog the Gay-Cat. In the unknown world of the open road they were pals, ready to fight and die for each other. Dreamy days, star studded nights, every turn of the road opening a new world where adventure walks unleashed. If the spirit of vagabondia still thrills within your soul this call is for you." With 4 page Appendix - "a glossary of flash language, that peculiar argot or slang of the thief and hobo." Hobos spoke their own language, lived by their own code. Veterans of the road enslaved younger runaways, to use them as servants, to dispatch their innocent faces to back doors to beg. True hobos scorned brethren who accepted work instead of handouts. To do nothing, to pay nothing, was the hobo dream, the true measure of freedom, the true test of authenticity. Besides this novel, the teenaged brothers Patrick and Terence Casey wrote five stories set in Hoboland—that is, the backroads, railyards, and seedy hobo jungles of America where tramps traveled and congregated. The initial story appeared in The Saturday Evening Post (1914), the remainder in the leading pulp Adventure (1916-21). Together, they constitute a grand saga of life in a strange, often violent underworld of yesteryear. Hobo Stories collects the series.