Ben, the Luggage Boy; Or, Among the Wharves Part 3

"No, they're not; they're well off."

The boot-black looked puzzled.

"Why didn't you stay at home then? Wouldn't they let you?"

"Of course they would. The fact is, I've run away."

"Maybe they'd adopt me instead of you."

"I don't think they would," said Ben, laughing.

"I wish somebody with lots of cash would adopt me, and make a gentleman of me. It would be a good sight better'n blackin' boots."

"Do you make much money that way?" inquired Ben.

"Pleasant days like this, sometimes I make a dollar, but when it rains there aint much doin'."

"How much have you made this morning?" asked Ben, with interest.

"Sixty cents."

"Sixty cents, and it isn't more than ten o'clock. That's doing pretty well."

"'Taint so good in the afternoon. Most every body gets their boots blacked in the mornin'. What are you goin' to do?"

"I don't know," said Ben.

"Goin' to black boots? I'll show you how," said the other, generously overlooking all considerations of possible rivalry.

"I don't think I should like that very well," said Ben, slowly.

Having been brought up in a comfortable home, he had a prejudice in favor of clean hands and unsoiled clothes,--a prejudice of which his street life speedily cured him.

"I think I should rather sell papers, or go into a store," said Ben.

"You can't make so much money sellin' papers," said his new acquaintance. "Then you might get 'stuck'".

"What's that?" inquired Ben, innocently.

"Don't you know?" asked the boot-black, wonderingly. "Why, it's when you've got more papers than you can sell. That's what takes off the profits. I was a newsboy once; but it's too hard work for the money.

There aint no chance of gettin' stuck on my business."

"It's rather a dirty business," said Ben, venturing to state his main objection, at the risk of offending. But Jerry Collins, for that was his name, was not very sensitive on this score.

"What's the odds?" he said, indifferently. "A feller gets used to it."

Ben looked at Jerry's begrimed hands, and clothes liberally marked with spots of blacking, and he felt that he was not quite ready to get used to appearing in public in this way. He was yet young in his street life.

The time came when he ceased to be so particular.

"Where do you board?" asked Ben, after a little pause.

Jerry Collins stared at the questioner as if he suspected that a joke was intended. But Ben's serious face a.s.sured him that he was in earnest.

"You're jolly green," he remarked, sententiously.

"Look here," said Ben, with spirit, "I'll give you a licking if you say that again."

It may be considered rather singular that Jerry, Instead of resenting this threat, was led by it to regard Ben with favor.

"I didn't mean anything," he said, by way of apology. "You're a trump, and you'll get over it when you've been in the city a week."

"What made you call me green?" asked Ben.

"Did you think I boarded up to the Fifth Avenue?" asked Jerry.

"What's that,--a hotel?"

"Yes, it's one of the big hotels, where they eat off gold plates."

"No, I don't suppose you board there," said Ben, laughing; "but I suppose there are cheaper boarding-places. Where do you sleep?"

"Sometimes in wagons, or in door-ways, on the docks, or anywhere where I get a chance."

"Don't you get cold sleeping out-doors?" asked Ben.

"Oh, I'm used to it," said Jerry. "When it's cold I go to the Lodging House."

"What's that?"

Jerry explained that there was a Newsboys' Lodging House, where a bed could be obtained for six cents a night.

"That's cheap," said Ben.

"'Taint so cheap as sleepin' out-doors," returned the boot-black.

This was true; but Ben thought he would rather pay the six cents than sleep out, if it were only for the damage likely to come to his clothes, which were yet clean and neat. Looking at Jerry's suit, however, he saw that this consideration would be likely to have less weight with him. He began to understand that he had entered upon a very different life from the one he had hitherto led. He was not easily daunted, however.

"If he can stand it, I can," he said to himself.

CHAPTER III.

STREET SCENES.

"Here's Broadway," said Jerry, suddenly.