With much ceremony and
obsequiousness, the three young travellers were ushered into the
office, where they wrote their names in a big book, and were escorted
to a large and elegant room, in which were ample, even luxurious,
sleeping accommodations for the trio.

The colored porter assiduously brushed off the clothing of the lads.
"Baggage?" the clerk at the desk had asked when they registered.
"Baggage, sah?" the waiter asked again, as he dusted briskly the
jackets of the three guests. Neither Charlie nor Oscar had the heart
to make reply to this very natural question. It was Sandy who said:
"We will not have our baggage up from the steamer to-night. We are
going right on up north."

But when Sandy tipped the expectant waiter with the long-treasured
silver quarter of a dollar, Charlie fairly groaned, and sinking into a
chair as the door closed, said, "Our last quarter! Great Scott, Sandy!
are you crazy?"

Sandy, seeing that there was no help for it, put on a bold front, and
insisted that they must keep up appearances to the last. He would hunt
up Uncle Oscar's place of abode in the city directory after supper,
and bright and early Sunday morning he would go and see him. They
would be all right then. What use was that confounded old quarter,
anyhow? They might as well stand well with the waiter. He might be
useful to them. Twenty-five cents would not pay their hotel bill; it
would not buy anything they needed in St. Louis. The darky might as
well have it.

"And this is one of the swellest and most expensive hotels in the
city," cried Charlie, eyeing the costly furniture and fittings of the
room in which they were lodged. "I just think that we are travelling
under false pretences, putting up at an expensive house like this
without a cent in our pockets. Not one cent! What will you do, you
cheeky boy, if they ask us for our board in advance? I have heard that
they always do that with travellers who have no baggage."

"Well, I don't know what we will do," said Sandy, doggedly. "Suppose
we wait until they ask us. There'll be time enough to decide when we
are dunned for our bill. I suppose the honestest thing would be to own
right up and tell the whole truth. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Lots
of people have to do that sort of thing when they get into a tight
place."

"But I'm really afraid, Sandy, that they won't believe us," said the
practical Oscar. "The world is full of swindlers as well as of honest
fellows. Th