This reasoning struck Bob as being eminently practical, and he was on the point of ordering another plate, when the girl made it unnecessary by saying: 

“I’ll stake you to another plate, if you want the beans very much.  It’s just about time for me to eat my supper, and I will bring it over to your table and eat with you, and I’ll make them think the beans are for me.”

Bob wasn’t quite sure whether such a plan was all right or not, but he had a healthy boy’s appetite for beans, and so he made no objection.

“You are very kind,” he said, when the second plate of the savory food was placed before him.  “I suppose I shall be hungry sometimes before I get to Oklahoma, but I don’t expect to ‘hobo’ it.”

“Then how do you expect to get along?  You say you haven’t much money.”

“I guess I don’t just understand what it means to ‘hobo’ it,” admitted Bob.

“No, I guess you don’t.  It’s the name they give out West to travelling when you don’t have money enough to pay your railroad fare, and have to beat your way, riding on freight trains.”

As Bob heard this explanation of the term, his eyes sparkled with delight, and he said earnestly: 

“I’m glad you told me about it.  I’d never thought of trying to steal a ride on a freight train.”

“For pity sake!  How did you expect to get away out there?”

“Walk, unless I could earn money enough in one town to take me to another.”

Bob’s conversation, which showed such a remarkable ignorance of the world, especially in view of the fact that he was a New York boy, suggested to the waitress that perhaps he had run away from home.

Determined to find out, she banished the sympathetic smile from her face, and becoming very severe, leaned across the table and gazing straight into Bob’s eyes, asked: 

“Look a here, kid, you haven’t run away from a good home, have you?”

The unexpectedness of this question took Bob by surprise.  Under the searching gaze of the girl’s eyes, he felt just as he had when the magistrate had glanced at him, and his voice trembled a little as he replied: 

“No!  Oh, no, indeed!”

But his manner was not convincing, and the girl continued her interrogations, but on a different tack.

“Your folks live in New York?”

“I haven’t any.”

“Then where have you been living?”

“With my guardian.”

“What do you do?”

“I used to deliver groceries for him.”

The stress Bob laid upon the word “used,” led the girl to inquire: 

“Did he fire you?  Or what?”

“No.  I left him.”

“How long ago?”

“Just this afternoon.”

The close questioning of the waitress was making Bob very uncomfortable, and he determined to tell her the real reason he had left, especially as she was so kind and seemed to know so much about traveling in the West.  Having reached this decision, he told, with many hesitations, the story of his experiences.