bones? any old iron? any copper, brass, old shoes all run down and no good to anybody to-day? any old 90 clothes, old coats, pants, vests? I take any old clothes you got.” 90 Yes, Rags Habakuk was going home. In the gunnysack bag on his back, humped up on top of the rag humps in the bag, was an old vest. It was the same old vest Jason Squiff threw out of a door at Rags Habakuk. In the pocket of the vest was the gold buckskin whincher with a power in it. Well, Rags Habakuk got home just like always, sat down to supper and smacked his mouth and had a big supper of fish, just like always. Then he went out to a shanty in the back yard and opened up the gunnysack rag bag and fixed things out classified just like every day when he came home he opened the gunnysack bag and fixed things out classified. The last thing of all he fixed out classified was the vest with the gold buckskin whincher in the pocket. “Put it on—it’s a glad rag,” he said, looking at the vest. “It’s a lucky vest.” So he put his right arm in the right armhole and 91 his left arm in the left armhole. And there he was with his arms in the armholes of the old vest all fixed out classified new. 91 Next morning Rags Habakuk kissed his wife g’by and his eighteen year old girl g’by and his nineteen year old girl g’by. He kissed them just like he always kissed them—in a hurry—and as he kissed each one he said, “I will be back soon if not sooner and when I come back I will return.” Yes, up the street went Rags Habakuk. And soon as he left home something happened. Standing on his right shoulder was a blue rat and standing on his left shoulder was a blue rat. The only way he knew they were there was by looking at them. There they were, close to his ears. He could feel the far edge of their whiskers against his ears. “This never happened to me before all the time I been picking rags,” he said. “Two blue rats stand by my ears and never say anything 92 even if they know I am listening to anything they tell me.” 92 So Rags Habakuk walked on two blocks, three blocks, four blocks, squinting with his right eye slanting at the blue rat on his right shoulder and squinting with his left eye slanting at the blue rat on his left shoulder. “If I stood on
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