"No, sir," I replied, turning away to hide my mortification, "everything is all right."
"Poor but proud," hisses the "Spider." The old gentleman passed on, sorely perplexed.
For some time I was a victim of this crude plot. When I tried to move away they followed me around the streets, crying after me:
"Any 'ciwilian' will give you a quarter. Go on an' ask them."
Several ladies stopped and asked if they could be of any service to me. I assured them that they couldn't, but all the time these low sailors whom I had been feeding lavishly kept jeering and intimating that I was fooling and would take any amount of money offered me from a dime up. This shower of conflicting statements always left the kindhearted people in a confused frame of mind and broke me up completely. I had to chase one man all the way down the street and hand him back the quarter he had thrust into my hand. My friends never forgave me for this.
At length, tiring of their sport, they desisted and stood gloomily on the curb as sailors do, looking idly at nothing.
"It don't look like we was ever going to get a hitch," said the "Spider," after we had abandonedly offered ourselves to several automobiles.
At that moment a huge machine rolled heavily by.
"There goes a piece of junk," said Tim. The lady in the machine must have heard him, for the car came to and she motioned for us to get in.
"Going our way?" she asked, smiling at us.