“I do, madam, yet I was once a thriving merchant.”
“I don’t; I acknowledge it.”
“How did you lose your property, if you ever had any?”
“By signin’ notes for my brother. It swept off all my possessions.”
“Then I pity you. That’s the way my man lost five hundred dollars, nearly all he had. What can I do for you?”
“Madam, I am hungry—very hungry.”
“Set right down on the settee, and I’ll give you what’s left of our breakfast.”
Tom Burns obeyed with alacrity.
A plate of cold bacon, a cold potato and some corn bread were placed before him, and he ate them voraciously. There had been times in his life when he would have turned up his nose at such fare, but not now.