"Here are three nice ones," said the boy, picking them out, and placing them in our hero's hands.
Walter felt in his vest-pocket, thinking he had a little change there. He proved to be mistaken. There was nothing in that pocket except his railway tickets.
Next, of course, he felt for his porte-monnaie, but he felt for it in vain.
He started in surprise.
"I thought my pocket-book was in that pocket," he reflected. "Can it be in the other?"
He felt in the other pocket, but search here was equally fruitless. He next felt nervously in the pocket of his coat, though he was sure he couldn't have put his porte-monnaie there. Then it flashed upon him, with a feeling of dismay, that he had lost his pocket-book and all his remaining money. How or where, he could not possibly imagine, for the suddenness of the discovery quite bewildered him.
"I won't take the oranges," he said to the boy. "I can't find my money."
The boy, who had made sure of a sale, took back the fruit reluctantly, and passed on, crying out, "Here's your oranges and apples!"
Walter set about thinking what had become of his money. The more he thought, the more certain he felt that he had put his porte-monnaie in the pocket in which he had first felt for it. Why was it not there now? That was a question which he felt utterly incompetent to answer.