"Are you sure you don't want this?" the tramp went on, as he took the partly eaten slice Ted held out to him. "I wouldn't for the world, hungry as I am, take your slice——"
"Oh, Nora'll give me more," said Ted eagerly. He really wanted to see the man bite into the slice. Ted said afterward that he wanted to know how big a bite the man could take.
"Well, then, if you can get more I will take this," said the man, as he eagerly and, so it seemed to the boys, very hungrily bit into the slice—or what was left of it after Ted had taken out his three and a half nibbles. What Ted took were really nibbles alongside the bites the man took.
"Were you in a war?" asked Tom, as he watched the tramp take the last of Ted's bread.
"No. Why did you think I was—because I have a wooden leg?"
The boy nodded.
"My leg was cut off on the railroad," went on the tramp. "But I get along pretty well on this wooden peg. It's a good thing in a way, too," he added.
"How's that?" asked Tom.
"Well, you see havin' only one leg there isn't so much of me to get hungry. It's just like having only one mouth instead of two. If you boys had two mouths you'd have to have two slices of bread and jam instead of one," went on the tramp, laughing. "It's the same way when you only have one leg instead of two—you don't get so hungry."
"Are you hungry yet?" asked Tom, as he saw the tramp licking off with his tongue some drops of jam that got on his fingers.