“Thank you for your advice,” said our hero. “There ain’t many that takes an interest in Ragged Dick.”
“So that’s your name,” said Mr. Whitney. “If I judge you rightly, it won’t be long before you change it. Save your money, my lad, buy books, and determine to be somebody, and you may yet fill an honorable position.”
“I’ll try,” said Dick. “Good night, sir.”
“Wait a minute, Dick,” said Frank. “Your blacking-box and old clothes are upstairs. You may want them.”
“In course,” said Dick. “I couldn’t get along without my best clothes, and my stock in trade.”
“You may go up to the room with him, Frank,” said Mr. Whitney. “The clerk will give you the key. I want to see you, Dick, before you go.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dick.
“Where are you going to sleep tonight, Dick?” asked Frank, as they went upstairs together.
“P’r’aps at the Fifth Avenue Hotel—on the outside,” said Dick.
“Haven’t you any place to sleep, then?”
“I slept in a box, last night.”
“In a box?”
“Yes, on Spruce Street.”
“Poor fellow!” said Frank, compassionately.
“Oh, ’twas a bully bed—full of straw! I slept like a top.”
“Don’t you earn enough to pay for a room, Dick?”
“Yes,” said Dick; “only I spend my money foolish, goin’ to the Old Bowery, and Tony Pastor’s, and sometimes gamblin’ in Baxter Street.”
“You won’t gamble any more—will you, Dick?” said Frank, laying his hand persuasively on his companion’s shoulder.
“No, I won’t,” said Dick.
“You’ll promise?”
“Yes, and I’ll keep it. You’re a good feller. I wish you was goin’ to be in New York.”
“I am going to a boarding school in Connecticut. The name of the town is Barnton. Will you write to me, Dick?”
“My writing would look like hens’ tracks,” said our hero.
“Never mind. I want you to write. When you write you can tell me how to direct, and I will send you a letter.”
“I wish you would,” said Dick. “I wish I was more like you.”
“I hope you will make a much better boy, Dick. Now we’ll go in to my uncle. He wishes to see you before you go.”
They went into the reading-room. Dick had wrapped up his blacking-brush in a newspaper with which Frank had supplied him, feeling that a guest of the Astor House should hardly be seen coming out of the hotel displaying such a professional sign.
“Uncle, Dick’s ready to go,” said Frank.
“Goodbye, my lad,” said Mr. Whitney. “I hope to hear good accounts of you sometime. Don’t forget what I have told you. Remember that your future position depends mainly upon yourself, and that it will be high or low as you choose to make it.”
He held out his hand, in which was a five-dollar bill. Dick shrunk back.
“I don’t like to take it,” he said. “I haven’t earned it.”
“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Whitney; “but I give it to you because I remember my own friendless youth. I hope it may be of service to you. Sometime when you are a prosperous man, you can repay it in the form of aid to some poor boy, who is struggling upward as you are now.”
“I will, sir,” said Dick, manfully.
He no longer refused the money, but took it gratefully, and, bidding Frank and his uncle goodbye, went out into the street. A feeling of loneliness came over him as he left the presence of Frank, for whom he had formed a strong attachment in the few hours he had known him.
XII
Dick Hires a Room on Mott Street
Going out into the fresh air Dick felt the pangs of hunger. He accordingly went to a restaurant and got a substantial supper. Perhaps it was the new clothes he wore, which made him feel a little more aristocratic. At all events, instead of patronizing the cheap restaurant where he usually procured his meals, he went into the refectory attached to Lovejoy’s Hotel, where the prices were higher and the company more select. In his ordinary dress, Dick would have been excluded, but now he had the appearance of a very respectable, gentlemanly boy, whose presence would not discredit any establishment. His orders were therefore received with attention by the waiter and in due time a good supper was placed before him.
“I wish I could come here every day,” thought Dick. “It seems kind o’ nice and ’spectable, side of the other place. There’s a gent at that other table that I’ve shined boots for more’n once. He don’t know me in my new clothes. Guess he don’t know his bootblack patronizes the same establishment.”
His supper over, Dick went up to the desk, and, presenting his check, tendered in payment his five-dollar bill, as if it were one of a large number which he possessed. Receiving back his change he went out into the street.
Two questions now arose: How should he spend the evening, and where should he pass the night? Yesterday, with such a sum of money in his possession, he would have answered both questions readily. For the evening, he would have passed it at the Old Bowery, and gone to sleep in any out-of-the-way place that offered. But he had turned over a new leaf, or resolved to do so. He meant to save his money for some useful purpose—to aid his advancement in the world. So he could not afford the theatre. Besides, with his new clothes, he was unwilling to pass the night out of doors.
“I should spile ’em,” he thought, “and that wouldn’t pay.”
So he determined to hunt up a room which he could occupy regularly, and consider as his own, where he could sleep nights, instead of depending on boxes and old wagons for a chance shelter. This would be the first step towards respectability, and Dick determined to take it.
He accordingly passed through the City Hall Park, and walked leisurely up Centre Street.
He decided that
