"It does seem hard that you should have had your means of living taken away from you through the spite of a boy. He must have a very bad disposition, this Robert Rudd."
"Yes," said Carden, in a voice which was becoming thick through his frequent potations, for he was drinking two glasses or more to the stranger's one. "I'm a poor man, and it's hard to be thrown out of work."
"I suppose you haven't saved up much money, then?"
"Saved! What could I save out of fifteen dollars a month?"
"That is poor pay, certainly. Is this boy, Robert Rudd, well paid?"
"Well paid? He's got two hundred dollars saved up."
"You don't tell me so! That is a good deal for a boy. Where does he keep it?"
"In his locker," answered Carden, an expression of cupidity sweeping over his face.
This was not unnoticed by the stranger, who said to himself: "Unless I am greatly mistaken, the boy was right in charging you with trying to get at his hoard. I can read it in your face."