“Here, Tim,” she said, “eat that; I aint hungry.”
It was one of Tim’s frequent fast days, and even the hard crust was acceptable to him. He took it readily, and began to eat it ravenously. Tom looked on with benevolent interest, feeling the satisfaction of having done a charitable act. The satisfaction might have been heightened by the thought that she was going to get something better herself.
“So you’re hungry, Tim,” she said.
“I’m always hungry,” said Tim.
“Did you have any breakfast?”
“Only an apple I picked up in the street.”
“He’s worse off than me,” thought Tom; but she had no time to reflect on the superior privileges of her own position, for she was beginning to feel hungry herself.
There was a cheap restaurant near by, only a few blocks away.
Tom knew it well, for she had often paused before the door and inhaled enviously the appetizing odor of the dishes which were there vended to patrons not over-fastidious, at prices accommodated to scantily lined pocket-books. Tom had never entered, but had been compelled to remain outside, wishing that a more propitious fortune had placed it in her power to dine there every day. Now, however, first thrusting her fingers into the lining of her jacket to make sure that the money was there, she boldly entered the restaurant and took a seat at one of the tables.
The room was not large, there being only eight tables, each of which might accommodate four persons. The floor was sanded, the tables were some of them bare, others covered with old newspapers, which had become greasy, and were rather worse than no table-cloth at all. The guests, of whom perhaps a dozen were seated at the table, were undoubtedly plebeian. Men in shirt-sleeves, rough-bearded sailors and ’long-shore men, composed the company, with one ragged boot-black, who had his blacking-box on the seat beside him.