Peter took a silver dollar from his pocket and handed it to the tramp, and Booge started across the street to the nearest saloon without farewell. Peter took a step after him and then turned back.
“I guess it's what he likes,” he said, “and I couldn't stop him if I wanted to.”
Peter turned into the Star Restaurant and took a seat at one of the red-covered tables.
“Bob,” he said, “can you get me up one of them oyster stews of yours? One of them milk stews, with plenty of oysters and a hunk of butter thawing out on top. Fix me one. And then I want a chicken—a nice, fresh, young chicken, killed about day before yesterday—split open and br'iled right on top of the coals, so the burned smell will come sifting in before the chicken is ready, and I want it on a hot plate—a plate so hot I'll holler when I grab it. And I want some of your fried potatoes in a side dish—hashed browned potatoes, browned almost crisp in the dish, with bacon chopped up in them. And I want a big cup of coffee with real cream, even if you have to send out for it. And then, Bob, I want a whole lemon meringue pie. A whole one, three inches thick and fourteen inches across. I've been wanting to eat a whole lemon meringue pie ever since I was fourteen years old, and now I'm going to. I'm going to have one full, fine, first-class meal and then—”
“Then what?” asked Bob.
“Then I'm going to go and get an alarm-clock that belongs to me.”
XX. PETER GETS HIS CLOCK
For a man who means to walk it, considering the usual state of the river-road in spring, the railway is the best path between Riverbank and Widow Potter's farm, and Peter, leaving the town, took to the railway track. He had, he assured himself, a definite purpose in visiting Mrs. Potter. She had expressed her views of a man who fell so low as to pawn his goods and chattels, and the wound still rankled, and Peter meant to have back his alarm-clock. That, he repeated to himself, was why he was going to Mrs. Potter's, but in his heart he knew this was not so—he wanted to see Buddy. He wanted, before the boy forgot him, to reestablish for a moment the old ties. In short, he was jealous of Mrs. Potter.