He looked startled at first, then directed a quick, meaning glance at the tramp, who disappeared as if by magic. The boy overhead scowled darkly at Ralph, and then thought better of it, and tried to appear friendly.
"I give the poor beggar what's left of my dinner for carrying my pail home, so I won't be bothered with it," he said.
The speaker's face showed he did not at all believe that keen-witted Ralph Fairbanks accepted this gauzy explanation, after hefting that pail, but Ralph said nothing.
"What's up, Fairbanks?" inquired his shock-headed interlocutor at the window—"sort of inspecting things?"
Ralph, preparing to pass on, nodded silently.
"Trying to break in, eh?"
"Is there any chance?" inquired Ralph, pausing slightly.
Ike Slump laughed boisterously. He was a year or two older than Ralph, but had a face prematurely developed with cunning and tobacco, and looked twenty-five.
"Yes," he said, "if you're anxious to get boiled, blistered, oiled and blinded twenty times a day, be kicked from platform to pit, and paid just about enough to buy arnica and sticking plaster!"
"Bad as that?" interrogated Ralph dubiously.
