While he stared with all his longing eyes, he heard these words spoken loudly right by his side, "Come on, then; we shall be sure of a good dinner."
Bonny turned round. Two men in tall black hats were striding by, and one, as he spoke, clapped the other on the shoulder. The invitation was not meant for Bonny at all. But that did not make any difference to him. He simply received the idea that if he followed these two men he should get to a dinner. So he pressed sturdily after them. He had to walk fast, and sometimes he almost lost sight of them in the throng. But Bonny was so hungry by this time that he was very much in earnest. He did not stop to watch the people, nor to look into any more shop windows.
It was really not long before the two tall hats were seen turning up some low, broad steps. The panting Bonny, tugging after, followed unnoticed through a wide door into a vast hall, all paved with marble. Quite confused and out of breath, Bonny suddenly stood still. Where he had lost sight of the two tall hats and the wearers of them he did not know.
"Seems like another out-doors," the child thought, looking up at the high ceiling; "but where's the dinner? There is a dinner; I smell it; it smells good. Seems to me I never did smell so much dinner in my life."
By this time he also became aware of a cheerful clatter of dishes and voices; and following the sound across the wide hall, he pushed open a great door that stood half ajar.
Sure enough, there before him lay table after table, adorned with spotless linen, and spread temptingly not only with flowers and fruit, but with plenty to eat.
How should little Bonny know that this was the day when the grand new Metropolis Hotel first opened to the public? How should he know that here were all the mighty men of the city—merchants, editors, ministers even—with their wives, met together by invitation to celebrate the dedication dinner? You see, they had not invited Bonny: nobody expected him; so at first nobody noticed him as he slipped noiselessly in.
The tables seemed so full of people that Bonny had to walk up the room to find a place. A queer hush fell on the clatter and the chatter. People dropped their forks. They watched this little figure with the sunny hair, the happy face, the shabby shoes, the tumbled check apron, that dragged after it the well-nigh forgotten red cape, and at last mounting into an empty chair, said, with a sigh of satisfaction, and in a very clear voice, "I want dinner, please."
Bonny glanced round him. He thought everybody looked pleased, and catching the eye of a lady who bent toward him, he smiled back a shy, friendly smile.
This lady was the first to speak to him. She crossed eagerly over and said, "May I sit beside you, dear? I knew a little boy once with yellow hair like yours."