It was now twenty minutes past the dinner hour and there were still no signs of Poe, nor had any word come from him.

"For mercy's sake, St.George, try the suit-of-clothes method--any suit of clothes--here--he can have mine! I'll be twice as comfortable without them." "He couldn't get into them," returned St.George with a smile--"nor could he into mine, although he is half our weight; and as for our hats--they wouldn't get further down on his head than the top of his crown." "But I insist on the experiment," bubbled Clayton good-naturedly.
"Here we are, hungry as wolves and everything being burned up.

Try the suit-of-clothes trick--Kennedy did it--and it won't take your Todd ten minutes to go to Guy's and bring him back inside of them." "Those days are over for Poe," Kennedy remarked with a slight frown.

The major's continued allusions to a brother writer's poverty, though pure badinage, had begun to jar on the author.
For the second time Todd's face was thrust in at the door.

It now looked like a martyr's being slowly roasted at the stake.
"Yes, Todd--serve dinner!" called St.George in a tone that showed how great was his disappointment.