"What's the matter with you, Sammy?" asked George, struck by his unusual slowness.
"I never knew you to hang back on a call to dinner before," put in Frank.
"Get a move on," suggested Bob, giving Sammy a vigorous poke in the ribs.
Sammy would have protested, but just at this moment the two men in front rose with the evident intention of going into the dining car, and Sammy decided that it would be well to keep them in sight.
The boys were lucky enough to get a table together, while the two men seated themselves at a table a few feet away on the other side of the car. Sammy so arranged his own seat that he could have the men in view all through dinner, promising himself that he would do more watching than eating.
But his resolution failed before the good things that were heaped by the smiling waiter on their table. There was soup and fish and oysters and chicken and delicious fried potatoes and olives and relishes of all kinds. Despite himself Sammy forgot for the time all about the criminals and waded into the good things just as eagerly and voraciously as the rest of the boys.
The colored waiter watched them with a grin that displayed all his white teeth.
"Ah clah's to goodness," he confided to one of his mates, "ah wouldn't want to have dem young gemmen as stiddy boarders. Dey suah would eat me out of house and home."
But the boys' capacity had a limit, and at last they had finished the solid part of their meal and were sitting happily back in their seats waiting for their dessert of pie and ice cream.
Then it was that graver affairs than mere eating pressed upon Sammy. He fastened his eyes upon the two men and kept them there without blinking.