CHAPTER III
CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
It was Tom’s ill luck that brought granny upon the scene, contrary to every reasonable expectation. After smoking out her pipe, she made up her mind to try another smoke, when she found that her stock of tobacco was exhausted. Being constitutionally lazy, it was some minutes before she made up her mind to go out and lay in a fresh supply. Finally she decided, and made her way downstairs to the court, and thence to the street.
Tim saw her, and volunteered the information, “Tom gave me some bread.”
“When?” demanded granny.
“When she come out just now.”
“What did she do that for?”
“She said she wasn’t hungry.”
The old woman was puzzled. Tom’s appetite was usually quite equal to the supply of food which she got. Could Tom have secreted some money to buy apples? This was hardly likely, since she had carefully searched her. Besides, Tom had returned the usual amount. Still, granny’s suspicions were awakened, and she determined to question Tom when she returned at the close of the afternoon.
The tobacco shop where granny obtained her tobacco was two doors beyond the restaurant where Tom was then enjoying her cheap dinner with a zest which the guests at Delmonico’s do not often bring to the discussion of their more aristocratic viands. It was only a chance that led granny, as she passed, to look in; but that glance took in all who were seated at the tables, including Tom.
Had granny received an invitation to preside at a meeting in the Cooper Institute, she would hardly have been more surprised than at the sight of Tom, perfidiously enjoying a meal out of money from which she had doubtless been defrauded.