“How sad when lack of faith doth part
  The tender from the toughened heart!”

Rhyming Joe had drawn two chairs near to the stove, and had playfully forced Ralph into one of them, while he, himself, took the other.

The bar-tender came out from behind his bar and approached the couple.

“Oh, by the way,” he asked, “did ye have a ticket for your passage up, or was ye goin’ to pay your fare?”

“Oh, no!” said Ralph, “I ain’t got any ticket.  Mr. Sharpman paid my fare down, but I was goin’ to pay it back, myself.”

The man stood, for a few minutes, listening to the reminiscences of their Philadelphia life which Ralph and Joe were recalling, then he interrupted again:—­

“How’d ye like to have some dinner, me boy?  Ain’t ye gittin’ a little hungry? it’s after noon now.”

“Well, I am a bit hungry,” responded Ralph, “that’s a fact.  Do you get dinners here for people?”

“Oh, certainly! jest as good a dinner as ye’ll git anywhere.  Don’t charge ye for nothing more’n ye actially eat, neither.  Have some?”

“Well, yes,” said the boy, “I guess so; I won’t have no better chance to get any, ’fore I get home.”

“I think,” said Rhyming Joe, as the man shuffled away, “that my young friend would like a dish of soup, then a bit of tenderloin, and a little chicken-salad, and some quail on toast, with the vegetables and accessories.  For dessert we will have some ices, a few chocolate eclairs and lady-fingers, and a cup of black coffee.  You had better bring the iced champagne with the dinner, and don’t forget the finger-bowls.”

Before the last words were out of the speaker’s mouth, the bar-tender had disappeared through a door behind the bar, with a wicked smile on his face.

It seemed a long time, to Ralph, before the man came back, but when he did come, he carried in his hands a tray, on which were bowls of oyster soup, very thin, a few crackers, and two little plates of dirty butter.  He placed them on a round table at one side of the room, and Ralph and Joe drew up their chairs and began to eat.

The man came again, a few minutes afterward, with bread, and pork, and cabbage, and coffee.

On the whole, it was much better than no dinner, and Ralph’s hunger prevented him from being very critical.  The warm food seemed to have the effect of making him more communicative, and he was allowing his companion to draw out from him, little by little, as they sat and ate, the whole story of his life since leaving Simon Craft.  Rhyming Joe appeared to be deeply interested and very sympathetic.

“Well, you did have a hard time, my dear lad,” he said, “out on the road with that circus company.  I travelled with a circus company once, myself, in the capacity of special entertainer of country people and inspector of watches and jewelry, but it brings tears to my eyes now, to remember how ungratefully they treated me.”