-it's the way it was done; and I was
so helpless, and I meant only to be kind."

The other men had arrived now and the three of us were ranged around
Peter in a circle, wondering with wide-opened eyes at his tone of
voice, his dismal expression, and especially at the air of dejection
which seemed to ooze through every square inch of his calico
dressing-gown.

"Sit down, all of you," he continued "and listen. And it's all your
fault. If only one of you had come up to see me! I waited and waited; I
knew most of you would be off somewhere eating your Thanksgiving
turkey, but that every mother's son of you should have forgotten
me--that's what I won't forgive you for."

We, with one accord, began to make excuses, but he waved us into
silence.

"After a while I got so lonely I couldn't stand it any longer. So about
six o'clock I started out to dine alone somewhere--some place where I
had no associations with any one of you. I hadn't gone as far as
Broadway when along came two men and a woman. You'd have said 'two
gentlemen and a lady'--I say two men and a woman. I looked at them and
they looked at me. I saw they were from out of town, and right away
came the thought, they must be lonely, too. Everybody is lonesome on
Thanksgiving if he's away from home, or, like me, has no place to go
to. The Large Man stopped and nudged the Small Man, and the Woman
turned and looked at me earnestly, then all three talked together for a
minute, then I heard the Small Man say, 'I'll go you a ten on it,'
which conveyed no meaning to me. Then all three of them walked back to
where I stood and the Large Man asked me where Foscari's restaurant was.

"Well, of course, that was in the next street, so I volunteered to show
them the place. On the way over the Small Man and the Woman lagged
behind and I overheard them say that it would never do--that is, the
Woman said so; at which the Small Man laughed and said they couldn't
find a better. All this time the Large Man held me by the arm in a
friendly sort of way, as if he were afraid I would stub my toe and fall
if he didn't help me over the gutters; telling me all the time that he
didn't know the ropes around New York and how much obliged he was to me
for taking all this trouble to show him. Pretty soon we arrived at
Foscari's. I never dined there--never had been inside the place. Cheap
sort of a restaurant--down two steps from the sidewalk, but they asked
for Foscari's, and that's where I took