did you want that coat for?" he asked.
"It's like dis, cul," the boy answered in a tone of confidence. "I owns a swell clo'es-joint on Fift' Avenoo, an' I'm out gittin' in me fall stock."
"What's your name?" David demanded.
"Reggie Vanderbilt."
David did not try another question. He scrutinised the boy in silence, wondering what he should do with this young thief who, instead of showing the proper caught-in-the-act penitence, persisted in wearing the air of one who is master of the situation. David now took note that the boy's coat-collar was turned up and that the coat was held closed by a button near the throat and a safety pin at the bottom. The gaping front of the coat showed him a white line. He stepped forward, and with a quick hand loosened the button at the throat. It was as he had guessed – nothing but a mere rag of an undershirt that left the chest half bare – and the bare chest was rippled with ribs.
"Keep out o' dere!" the boy snapped, jerking away.
David was silent; then he said accusingly: "You're hungry!"
"Well, if I am – it's me own bellyache!"
"You tried to take that coat because you're hungry?"
"I did, did I?"
"Didn't you?"
"Oh, come stop jabbin' me in de ear wid your questions," the boy returned sharply. "What you t'ink I took it for? To buy me goil a automobile?"
He was silent for several moments, his bright eyes on David; then he threw off his defiant look. "Hungry?" he sniffed. "You don't know what de woid means! Me – well, me belly don't have to look it up in no dictionary. I ain't chawed nuttin' but wind for a mont'."
"You were going to sell it?"
"Nix. Pawn it."
David looked from the boy to the coat, and from the coat to the boy. One hand, in his pocket, mechanically fingered his fortune – seven coppers. After a minute he picked up the coat, put it across his arm, and opened the door.
"Come on," he said.
The boy did not budge. "Where you goin' to take me?" he asked suspiciously.
"Nowhere. You're going to take me."
"Where?"
"To the pawnshop," said David.
The boy gave a sneer of disgust, and an outward push with an open, dirty hand. "Oh, say now, cul, don't feed me dat infant's food! D'you t'ink I can't see t'rough dat steer? I'm wise to where – to de first cop!"
He shuffled from his place against the wall. "Well, you got me. Come on. Let's go."
He stepped through the door and stood quietly till David had the key in the lock. Then suddenly he darted toward the stairway. David sprang after him and caught his coat-tail just as he was taking three stairs at one step. David fastened his right hand upon the boy's sleeve, and side by side they marched down the four flights of stairs and into the street.
"Now take me to the pawnshop," David directed.
The boy gave a knowing grunt but said nothing. He walked quietly along till they sighted a policeman standing on a corner half a block ahead. Then he began to drag backward, and David had fairly to push him. As they came up to the officer David glanced down, and saw tenseness, alertness, fear – the look of the captured animal that watches for a chance to escape.
The officer noticed David's grip on the boy's sleeve. "What you caught there?" he demanded.
"Just a friend of mine," David answered, and passed on.
After a few paces the boy peered stealthily up, an uncomprehending look in his face. "Say, pard, you're a queer guy!" he said; and a moment later he added: "You needn't hold me. I'll go wid you."
David withdrew his hand, and a little further on the boy led David for the first time in his life into a pawnbroker's shop. David threw the coat upon the counter and asked for as much as could be advanced upon it.
A large percentage of pledges are never redeemed, and the less advanced on an unredeemed pledge the greater the pawnbroker's profit when it is sold. The money-lender looked the coat over. "A dollar and a half," he said.
"Ah, git out wid your plunk and a half!" the boy cut in. "Dat's stealin' widout takin' de risks. T'ree."
"It ain't worth it," returned the usurer.
The boy picked up the coat. "Come on," he said to David, and started out.
"Two!" called out the pawnbroker.
The boy walked on.
"Two and a half!"
The boy returned and threw the coat upon the counter.
Twenty minutes later they were back in the room, and several grocery parcels lay on the bed. With a gaze that was three parts wonderment and one part suspicion, the boy watched David cooking over the gas stove. He made no reply to David's remarks save when one was necessary, and then his answer was no more than a monosyllable.
At length the supper was ready. The table was the soap-box cupboard, so placed that one of them might have the edge of the bed as his chair. On this table were a can of condensed milk, a mound of sliced bread, and a cube of butter in its wooden dish. On the gas stove stood a frying-pan of eggs and bacon and a pot of coffee.
After the boy, at David's invitation, had blackened a basin of water with his hands, they sat down. David gave the boy two eggs and several strips of bacon, and served himself a like portion. Then they set to – one taste of eggs or bacon to three or four bites of bread. The boy never stopped, and David paused only to refill the coffee cups from time to time and to pour into them a pale string of condensed milk. And the boy never spoke, save once there oozed through his bread-stuffed mouth the information that his "belly was scairt most stiff."
Presently the boy's plate was clean to shininess – polished by pieces of bread with which he had rubbed up the last blotch of grease, the last smear of yellow. He looked over at the frying-pan in which was a fifth egg, and an extra strip of bacon. David caught the stare, and quickly turned the egg and bacon into the boy's plate.
The boy looked from the plate to David. "You don't want it?" he asked fearfully.
"No."
He waited for no retraction. A few minutes later, after having finished the egg and meat and the remaining slices of bread, he leaned back with a profound sigh, and steadily regarded David.
At length he said, abruptly: "Me name's Tom."
"Thanks," said David. "What's your last name?"
The boy's defiance and suspicion had fallen from him. "Jenks I calls meself. But I dunno. Me old man had a lot o' names – Jones, Simmons, Hall, an' some I forget. He changed 'em for his healt' – see? So I ain't wise to which me real name is."
Under David's questioning he became communicative about his history. "You had to be tough meat to live wid me old man. Me mudder wasn't built to stand de wear and tear, an' about de time I was foist chased off to school, she went out o' biz. I stayed wid me old man till I was twelve. He hit de booze hard, an' kep' himself in form
