For a while, he was very busy with some work in the rear of the office; then remembering Clara's strange words about the tramp, he went over to the case where the new man sat perched upon his high stool. The stranger was working rapidly and doing good work. George noticed though, that the hand which held the stick trembled; and that sometimes a letter dropped from the nervous fingers. "What's the matter?" he asked, eyeing him keenly.
The man, without lifting his head, muttered, "Nothing."
"Are you sick?"
A shake of the head was the only answer.
"Been drinking?"
"No." This time the head was lifted and two keen gray eyes, filled with mingled suffering and anger, looked full in the boss's face. "I've been without work for some time and am hungry, that's all." The head bent again over the case and the trembling fingers reached for the type.
"Hungry!—Good God, man!" exclaimed Udell. "Why didn't you say so?"—and turning quickly to the boy he said, "Here, skip down to that restaurant and bring a big hot lunch. Tell 'em to get a hustle on too."
[Illustration: "Here you are; come and fill up.">[
The boy fled and George continued talking to himself; "Hungry—and I thought he had been on a spree. I ought to have known better than that. I've been hungry myself—Clara's right; he is no bum printer. Great shade of the immortal Benjamin F! but he's plucky though—and proud—you could see that by the look in his eye when I asked him if he'd been drunk—poor fellow—knows his business too—just the man I've been looking for, I'll bet—Huh—wonder if the wire is down." And then as the boy returned with the basket of hot eatables, he called cheerily, "Here you are; come and fill up; no hungry man in this establishment, rush or no rush." He was answered by a clatter as half a stick full of type dropped from the trembling hand of the stranger. "Thank you," the poor fellow tried to say, as he staggered toward the kind-hearted infidel, and then, as he fell, Dick's outstretched fingers just touched Udell's feet.