"That's a likely story!" sneered the proprietor. "What do you think of it, Mr. Jones?" he asked, turning to a customer, whom he knew by name.
Mr. Jones shrugged his shoulders.
"Too thin!" he replied, briefly.
"Of course it is," said the proprietor, angrily. "This boy's evidently a beat."
"A what?" inquired Sam, who had not been in the city long enough to understand the meaning of the term.
"A dead beat; but you don't play any of your games on me, young man. I've cut my eye-teeth, I have. You don't swindle me out of a fifty-cent breakfast quite so easily. Here, John, call a policeman."
"Oh, don't call a policeman!" exclaimed Sam, terror-stricken. "It's true, every word I've told you. I'm from the country. I only got to the city yesterday, and I've been robbed of all my money, over six dollars. I hope you'll believe me."
"I don't believe a word you say," said the restaurant-keeper, harshly. "You are trying to come it over me. I dare say you've been round the streets half your life."
"I think you are wrong, Mr. Chucks," said another customer, who was waiting to pay his bill. "He's got a country look about him. He don't look like one of the regular street boys. Better let him go. I wouldn't call a policeman."
"I ought to," grumbled the proprietor. "Fancy his impudence in ordering a fifty-cent breakfast, when he hadn't a cent to pay his bill."