at for the appetite--I mean to
take away an appetite--when you've got more than you need."

"Have you got an appetite?" asked Tom Taylor.

"Indeed I have," answered the man. "I've got more appetite than I know
what to do with. I was just going to ask if you thought I could get
something to eat here. Having an appetite means you're hungry, you
know," he added with a smile, so Ted and Tom would understand. The man
looked hungrily at the bread and jam the boys were eating.

"Would you--would you like some of _this_?" asked Teddy, holding out his
slice, which had three bites and a half taken from it. The half bite was
the one Ted took just as he saw the man. He was so surprised that he
took only a half bite instead of a whole one.

"Would I like that? Only just wouldn't I, though!" cried the man,
smacking his lips. "But please don't ask me," he went on. "It isn't good
for the appetite to see things and not eat 'em."

"You can eat this," said Teddy, as he held out his slice of bread and
jam. "I've taken only a few bites out of it. And I cleaned my teeth this
morning," he added as if that would make it all right that he had eaten
part of the slice.

"Oh, that part doesn't worry me!" laughed the tramp. "But I don't want,
hungry as I am, to take your bread and butter, to say nothing of the
jam."

He turned aside and then swung back.

"There is butter on the bread, under that jam, isn't there?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Tom. "It's good butter, too."

"So I should guess," went on the man. "I can most always tell when
there's butter on the bread under the jam. There's always one sure way
to tell," he said.

"How?" asked Ted, thinking it might be some trick.

"Just take a _bite_!" laughed the man, and the two boys on the back
steps laughed, too.

"Are you sure you don't want this?" the tramp went on, as he took the
partly eaten slice Ted held out to him. "I wouldn't for the world,
hungry as I am, take your slice----"

"Oh, Nora'll give me more," said Ted eagerly. He really wanted to see
the man bite into the slice. Ted said afterward that he wanted to know
how big a bite the man could take.

"Well, then, if you can get more I will take this," said the man, as he
eagerly and, so it seemed to the boys, very hungrily bit into the
slice--or what was left of it after Ted had taken out his three and a
half nibbles. What Ted took were really nibbles alongside the bites the
man took.

"Were you in a war?" asked Tom, a