“How much better would you have succeeded, doctor?”
“Worse, if possible. Don’t suppose I’m running down your culinary skill, friend Brush. I freely admit that it exceeds mine.”
“I never tasted anything so good in my life,” said Tom, with a large sense of enjoyment.
“Hunger is a good sauce, my lad. To-morrow you may be more critical.”
Supper was over at length, and the three friends sat down before the cabin door.
“Tom, now I come to look at you,” said Brush, “you are the most complete ragamuffin I ever saw. Isn’t he, doctor?”
Tom laughed and looked rather ruefully at his dilapidated garb.
“I’ve worn this suit seven or eight months,” he said, “through woods and underbrush, sleeping in it at night when I lived with the Indians, and roughing it as I never expected to. Do you see those shoes?”
They scarcely hung about his feet, while his suit was torn, soiled and tattered.