“Didn’t they give you enough to eat?”
“Oh, yes, plenty.”
“And you had a good bed?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’d better have stayed. You don’t get either of them here. Where’d you sleep last night?”
“Up an alley in an old wagon.”
“You had a better bed than that in the country, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it was as soft as—as cotton.”
Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection supplying him with a comparison.
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“I felt lonely,” said Johnny.
Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle and ever-varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always dwelt.
Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a father living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr. Nolan was a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater part of his wages for liquor. His potations made him ugly, and inflamed a temper never very sweet, working him up sometimes to such a pitch of rage that Johnny’s life was in danger. Some months before, he had thrown a flatiron at his son’s head with such terrific force that unless Johnny had dodged he would not have lived long enough to obtain a place in our story. He fled the house, and from that time had not dared to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of blacking, and he had set up in business on his own account. But he had not energy enough to succeed, as has already been stated, and I am afraid the poor boy had met with many hardships, and suffered more than once from cold and hunger. Dick had befriended him more than once, and often given him a breakfast or dinner, as the case might be.
“How’d you get away?” asked Dick, with some curiosity. “Did you walk?”
“No, I rode on the cars.”
“Where’d you get your money? I hope you didn’t steal it.”
“I didn’t have none.”
“What did you do, then?”
“I got up about three o’clock, and walked to Albany.”
“Where’s that?” asked Dick, whose ideas on the subject of geography were rather vague.
“Up the river.”
“How far?”
“About a thousand miles,” said Johnny, whose conceptions of distance were equally vague.
“Go ahead. What did you do then?”
“I hid on top of a freight car, and came all the way without their seeing me.1 That man in the brown coat was the man that got me the place, and I’m afraid he’d want to send me back.”
“Well,” said Dick, reflectively, “I dunno as I’d like to live in the country. I couldn’t go to Tony Pastor’s or the Old Bowery. There wouldn’t be no place to spend my evenings. But I say, it’s tough in winter, Johnny, ’specially when your overcoat’s at the tailor’s, an’ likely to stay there.”
“That’s so, Dick. But I must be goin’, or Mr. Taylor’ll get somebody else to shine his boots.”
Johnny walked back to Nassau Street, while Dick kept on his way to Broadway.
“That boy,” soliloquized Dick, as Johnny took his departure, “ain’t got no ambition. I’ll bet he won’t get five shines today. I’m glad I aint like him. I couldn’t go to the theatre, nor buy no cigars, nor get half as much as I wanted to eat.—Shine yer boots, sir?”
Dick always had an eye to business, and this remark was addressed to a young man, dressed in a stylish manner, who was swinging a jaunty cane.
“I’ve had my boots blacked once already this morning, but this confounded mud has spoiled the shine.”
“I’ll make ’em all right, sir, in a minute.”
“Go ahead, then.”
The boots were soon polished in Dick’s best style, which proved very satisfactory, our hero being a proficient in the art.
“I haven’t got any change,” said the young man, fumbling in his pocket, “but here’s a bill you may run somewhere and get changed. I’ll pay you five cents extra for your trouble.”
He handed Dick a two-dollar bill, which our hero took into a store close by.
“Will you please change that, sir?” said Dick, walking up to the counter.
The salesman to whom he proffered it took the bill, and, slightly glancing at it, exclaimed angrily, “Be off, you young vagabond, or I’ll have you arrested.”
“What’s the row?”
“You’ve offered me a counterfeit bill.”
“I didn’t know it,” said Dick.
“Don’t tell me. Be off, or I’ll have you arrested.”
III
Dick Makes a Proposition
Though Dick was somewhat startled at discovering that the bill he had offered was counterfeit, he stood his ground bravely.
“Clear out of this shop, you young vagabond,” repeated the clerk.
“Then give me back my bill.”
“That you may pass it again? No, sir, I shall do no such thing.”
“It doesn’t belong to me,” said Dick. “A gentleman that owes me for a shine gave it to me to change.”
“A likely story,” said the clerk; but he seemed a little uneasy.
“I’ll go and call him,” said Dick.
He went out, and found his late customer standing on the Astor House steps.
“Well, youngster, have you brought back my change? You were a precious long time about it. I began to think you had cleared out with the money.”
“That ain’t my style,” said Dick, proudly.
“Then where’s the change?”
“I haven’t got it.”
“Where’s the bill then?”
“I haven’t got that either.”
“You young rascal!”
“Hold on a minute, mister,” said Dick, “and I’ll tell you all about it. The man what took the bill said it wasn’t good, and kept it.”
“The bill was perfectly good. So he kept it, did he? I’ll go with you to the store, and see whether he won’t give it back to me.”
Dick
