But she moved back from him, her nostrils dilating slightly and her expression unfavourable. “I’d be glad to give you all you want to eat,” she said coldly, “but I think you’d better sign the pledge first.”
“Ma’am?” said Tuttle in plaintive astonishment.
“I think you’ve been drinking.”
“No, lady! No!”
“I’m sure you have. I don’t believe in doing anything for people that drink; it doesn’t do them any good.”
“Lady——” Tuttle began, and he was about to continue his protest to her, when her husband interfered.
“Run along!” he said, and tossed the applicant for nourishment a dime.
Tuttle looked sadly at the little round disk of silver as it lay shining in his asphalt coloured palm; then he looked at the donor and murmured: “I ast fer bread—and they give me a stone!”
“Go along!” said the man.
Tuttle went slowly, seeming to be bowed in thoughtful melancholy; he went the more reluctantly because there was a hint of fried chicken on the air; and before he reached the pavement a buxom fair woman, readily guessed to be of Scandinavian descent, appeared in the doorway. “Dinner’s served, Mrs. Pinney,” she called briskly.