“You’d better get on your wheel, boy, and go right along,” said the stranger calmly.
“Do you know where my father lives?”
“Yes, at yonder fine house. I see him sitting out on the piazza. Shall we go along together?”
“No, I don’t keep such company as you.”
“And yet some day you may be as poor and friendless as myself.”
“That isn’t very likely. My father is a very rich man.”
“I knew him when he was poor.”
More and more puzzled by the independent manner of this shabby stranger, Clarence made a spurt, and soon found himself in the grounds of his father’s house.
“With whom were you talking, Clarence?” asked Stephen Ray as his son joined him on the piazza.
“One of the most impudent tramps I ever came across,” answered Clarence. “He made an attack upon me, and pulled me from my bicycle.”