Peter stared into the soup, as if it might hold, hidden in its muggy depths, the answer to his riddle.
“Just at present I'm sort of unable to do what I'd like to do myself,” he said. “I'd like to take you right with me, but I've got a certain friend that was quite put out because I didn't bring your ma to—to see her when your ma stopped in at my boat, and I guess maybe”—Mrs. Crink was returning with the crackers and cheese, and Peter ended hurriedly—“I guess maybe you better stay here until I make arrangements.”
It was a strange picture, the boy eating his soup gluttonously, Peter Lane in his comedy tramp garb of blanket and blanket-strips, and the little girl staring at him with big, trustful eyes. Mrs. Crink put the crackers and cheese on the table.
“If you've got through takin' up time that don't belong to you, maybe I can git some work out of this brat,” she snapped.
“Why, yes, ma'am,” said Peter politely. “It only so happened that this boy was her brother. We didn't want to discommode you at all.”
Susie turned away to her work of swabbing the bar, and Peter divided the crackers and cheese equally between himself and Buddy.
“I don't care much to have tramps come in here anyway,” said Mrs. Crink. “I never knew one yit that wouldn't pick up anything loose,” but Peter made no reply. He had a matter of tremendous import on his mind. He felt that he had taken the weight of Susie's troubles on his shoulders in addition to those of Buddy, and he had resolved to ask Widow Potter to take the two children!
The parting of the two children had for them none of the pathos it had for Peter. When Buddy had eaten the last scrap of cracker he got down from his chair.
“Good-by, Susie,” he said.
“Good-by, Buddy,” she answered, and that was all, and Peter led the boy out of the place.