"Hum!" mumbled the sailor, as he looked at the bone. "It's a good thing I bought a ten cent one. If you'd handed out a fiver there wouldn't have been enough meat on for a spider crab. Well, now the dog's eatin' let's us eat!"
"Right away!" promised Sam, and he led the way into the house.
"Mind you don't try to run away from me again!" growled the sailor, shaking his finger at Ruddy.
The poor dog, smelling a little good meat on the bone, had lain down with it between his fore paws and was gnawing it. He had no intention of running away just then. He was too hungry, and this was his supper. It was not like the good supper he would have had at home in his kennel, where Rick always fed him. But it must answer now.
Sailor Matt Stanton looked around the old ramshackle house as he and the junk man entered. It appeared to be filled with the same sort of trash and odds and ends that Ike gathered in his wagon. Sam Levy was in the junk business also, only he bought the things the other men gathered up in their wagons, and sold them to the larger dealers in bottles, rags and paper. He was a wholesale junk dealer and the others were retailers, you might say.
The three men went to the kitchen of the old house, and Sam began to cook a meal. It was now quite dark, and a lantern hung on the wall did not give a very good light.
Sailor Matt looked about him while waiting for his meal. He saw piles of rags, larger stacks of papers, old pieces of iron, torn automobile tires and other junk.
"I only do a small business," said Sam, looking around from where he was bending over the stove, making some sort of a stew in a broken kettle. "I only been here a little while. Lots of folks don't know I'm here at all—only my friends, like Iky and you."
"You needn't call me a friend," growled the sailor. "I ain't friends with nobody since I got out of luck losing my dog. NowI have him back maybe I'll get a ship, and start over again."
