He
stood regarding it curiously.
"Oh, dear!" cried Grace. "And I was so hungry!"
Betty strode forward. There was a look of determination on her face.
She spoke:
"Girls, I'm not going to let that tramp take our lovely lunch. Come on,
and I'll make him give it back!"
"Betty!" cried Amy. "You'd never dare!"
"I wouldn't? Watch me!"
The man was still standing there, looking at the valise as if in doubt
whether or not to open it. Betty with a glance at her chums walked on.
They followed.
"That--that's ours, if you please," said Betty. Her voice was weaker than
she had thought it would be, and quite wobbly, too. Her knees, she
confessed later, were in the same state. But she presented a brave front.
"That--that's our lunch," she added, swallowing a lump in her throat.
The man--he certainly looked like a tramp, as far as his clothes were
concerned, but his face was clean--turned toward the girls with a smile.
"Your lunch!" he exclaimed, and his voice was not unmusical, "how
fortunate!"
He did not say whether it was fortunate for them--or himself.
"We--we forgot it. We left it here," explained Mollie. "That is, I
left it here."
"That is--unfortunate," said the man.
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