"Don't be alarmed," he went on quickly. "I am not exactly sailing under false colors except in a minor way. Now, for instance, you took me for a tramp; did you not?" He paused and smiled.
"I—I think we did," faltered Mollie.
"And I don't blame you. I have, for the time being, assumed the habiliments of a knight of the road, for certain purposes of my own. I am—well, to be frank, I am trying to find something. In order to carry out my plans I have even begged my way, and, not always successfully. In fact—"
"You are hungry!" exclaimed Grace, and her chums said she made a move as though to bring out some chocolates. Grace, later, denied this.
"I am hungry," confessed the tramp—as he evidently preferred to appear.
Betty took out a generous portion of food.
"It is too much," the wayfarer protested.
"Not at all," Betty insisted. "We have a double reason for giving it to you. First, you are hungry. Second, please accept it as a reward for—"
"For not eating all of your lunch after I found it, I suppose you were going to say," put in the man, with a smile. "Very well, then I'll accept," and he bowed, not ungracefully.
He had the good taste—or was it bashfulness—to go over to a little grove of trees to eat his portion. Grace wanted to take him a cup of chocolate—which they made instead of tea—but Betty persuaded her not to. The girls ate their lunch, to be interrupted in the midst of it by the man who called a good-bye to them as he moved off down the road.