And save for the fact that in none of them I met were the outward graces and virtues too prominently displayed, I have come back quite uncertain as to what a scientist might call type-characteristics.
I had thought of following Emerson in his delightfully optimistic definition of a weed.

A weed, he says, is a plant whose virtues have not been discovered.

A tramp, then, is a man whose virtues have not been discovered.

Or, I might follow my old friend the Professor (who dearly loves all growing things) in his even kindlier definition of a weed.
He says that it is merely a plant misplaced.

The virility of this definition has often impressed me when I have tried to grub the excellent and useful horseradish plants out of my asparagus bed! Let it be then--a tramp is a misplaced man, whose virtues have not been discovered.
Whether this is an adequate definition or not, it fitted admirably the man I overtook that morning on the road.