“Not so ordinary,” said another boy. “If you could see it from where we are you could understand.”
“I understand you only too well,” I answered.
Then the two boys who were on the Reception Committee came over to us and took my German friend in hand. There were no more remarks until we reached the house and the man himself was quite out of hearing.
“Why did you bring out a man like that?” the cook questioned me soon after I reached the house, and every one looked up from the evening paper he was reading anxious to have his little laugh.
But years have taught me somewhat of the ways of men. Did not Moses, when the children of Israel attempted to entangle him in argument, make his contention invulnerable by stating, “God spake unto Moses, saying,——”
After that there wasn’t much chance for argument. The best thing they could do at such a time was to quietly line up in the ranks. And there is an answer that will always check the hilarity of homeless men and make them as sympathetic as children.
“Why did you bring him out with you?” the cook repeated.
“Why?” I said, simply, “the man is hungry.”
Each boy frowned at the cook and turned back to his reading. And the cook made no answer, except he served the new-comer with double portions.
That night the German slept with his bed between the two beds of the Reception Committee, and I heard nothing from him until they came to report to me in the morning.