Soon the old man reappeared and opened the sliding-door. He carried a small waiter containing a cup of tea, a plate of cold meat, and a slice of white bread without butter.
"We don't want you to starve," he said. "Here's something to stay your stomach. You're hungry, ain't you?"
Jasper admitted that he was.
"I thought so. When I was your age I was always eating. Never could get enough."
Jasper wondered, if this were the case, why the old man had not grown larger, but he did not say this. He took the waiter from Nathan and set it on his lap, there being no table.
"I hope you don't mean to keep me long as a boarder," he said. "You won't find it profitable, boarding me for nothing."
"That isn't for me to say," said Nathan. "Jack and Bill will see to that."
"Did they tell you to confine me?"
"Yes; I told you that already."
"Will you ask them to come up and speak to me? I want to know why I am here."