"I believe it is. Let him alone—don't pay any attention to him; wait till we can get a good look at him."
The tramp approached timidly and hesitatingly, with the air of one unsure and apprehensive. The waiters watched him furtively. When he was passing behind Harte's chair one of them said,
"He's the one!"—and they pounced upon him and proposed to turn him over to the police as a bilk. He begged piteously. He confessed his guilt, but said he had been driven to his crime by necessity—that when he had eaten the plate of beans and flipped out without paying for it, it was because he was starving, and hadn't the ten cents to pay for it with. But the waiters would listen to no explanations, no palliations; he must be placed in custody. He brushed his hand across his eyes and said meekly that he would submit, being friendless. Each waiter took him by an arm and faced him about to conduct him away. Then his melancholy eyes fell upon Captain Osborn, and a light of glad and eager recognition flashed from them. He said,
"Weren't you a midshipman once, sir, in the old 'Lancaster'?"
"Yes," said Osborn. "Why?"
"Didn't you fall overboard?"
"Yes, I did. How do you come to know about it?"
"Wasn't there a new patent machine aboard, and didn't they throw it over to save you?"
"Why, yes," said Osborn, laughing gently, "but it didn't do it."