eight years old; and I'm goin' on fifteen now."
"You went to work early."
"Yes, I had to. Father and mother both died, and I was left to take care of myself."
"You took care of yourself when you were only eight years old?" asked Frank, in surprise.
"Yes."
"Then I ought to make a living, for I am fifteen,—a year older than you are now."
"Oh, you'll get along when you get started," said Dick, encouragingly. "There's lots of things to do."
"Is there anything to do that doesn't require any capital?" inquired Frank, anxiously.
"Yes, you can smash baggage."
"Will people pay for that?" asked Frank, with a smile.
"Of course they will. You jest hang round the ferries and steamboat landin's, and when a chap comes by with a valise or carpet-bag, you jest offer to carry it, that's all."
"Is that what you call smashing baggage?"
"Of course. What did you think it was?"
Frank evaded answering, not caring to display his country ignorance.
"Do you think I can get a chance to do that?" he asked.
"You can try it and see."
"I came in by the Hartford boat myself, to-day," said Frank. "If I'd thought of it, I would have begun at once."
"Only you wouldn't have knowed the way anywhere, and if a gentleman asked you to carry his valise to any hotel you'd have had to ask where it was."
"So I should," Frank admitted.
"I'll show you round a little, if you want me to," said Dick. "I shan't have anything to do for an hour or two."
"I wish you would."
So the two boys walked about in the lower part of the city, Dick pointing out hotels, public buildings, and prominent streets. Frank had a retentive memory, and stored away the information carefully. Penniless as he was, he was excited and exhilarated by the scene of activity in which he was moving, and was glad he was going to live in it, or to attempt doing so.
"When I am used to it I shall like it much better than the country," he said to Dick. "Don't you?"
"I don't know about that," was the reply. "Sometimes I think I'll go West;—a lot of boys that I know have gone there."
"Won't it take a good deal of money to go?" asked Frank.
"Oh, there's a society that pays boys' expenses, and finds 'em nice homes with the farmers. Tom Harrison, one of my friends, went out six weeks ago, and he writes me that it's bully. He's gone to some town in Kansas."
"That's a good way off."
"I wouldn't mind that. I'd like ridin' in the cars."
"It would be something new to you; but I've lived in the country all my life, I'd rather stay here awhile."
"It's just the way a feller feels," said Dick philosophically. "I've bummed around so much I'd like a good, stiddy home, with three square meals a day and a good bed to sleep on."
"Can't you get that here?" asked Frank.
"Not stiddy. Sometimes I don't get but one square meal a day."
Frank became thoughtful. Life in the city seemed more precarious and less desirable than he anticipated.
"Well, I must go to work again," said Dick, after a while.
"Where are you going to sleep to-night?" asked Frank.
"I don't know whether I'd better sleep at the Astor House or Fifth avenue," said Dick.
Frank looked perplexed.
"You don't mean that, do you?" he asked.
"Of course I don't. You're too fresh. Don't get mad," he continued good-naturedly, seeing the flush on Frank's cheek. "You'll know as much about the city as I do before long. I shall go to the Newsboys' Lodgin' House, where I can sleep for six cents."
"I wish I had six cents," said Frank. "If I could only get work I'd soon earn it. You can't think of anything for me to do, can you?"
Dick's face lighted up.
"Yes," he said, "I can get you a job, though it aint a very good one. I wonder I didn't think of it before."
"What is it?" asked Frank, anxiously.
"It's to go round with a blind man, solicitin' contributions."
"You mean begging?"
"Yes; you lead him into stores and countin' rooms, and he asks for money."
"I don't like it much," said Frank, slowly, "but I must do something. After all, it'll be he that's begging, not I."
"I'll take you right round where he lives," said Dick. "Maybe he'll go out this evenin'. His other boy give him the slip, and he hasn' got a new one yet."
CHAPTER III.
FRANK FINDS AN EMPLOYER
A stone's throw from Centre street stands a tall tenement-house, sheltering anywhere from forty to fifty families in squalid wretchedness. The rent which each family pays would procure a neat house in a country town, with perhaps a little land beside; but the city has a mysterious fascination for the poorer classes, and year after year many who might make the change herd together in contracted and noisome quarters, when they might have their share of light and space in country neighborhoods.
It was in front of this tenement-house that Dick halted, and plunged into a dark entrance, admonishing Frank to follow. Up creaking and dilapidated staircases to the fourth floor the boys went.
"Here we are," said Dick, panting a little from the rapidity of his ascent, and began a vigorous tattoo on a door to the left.
"Is this where the blind gentleman lives?" asked Frank, looking around him dubiously.
"He isn't much of a gentleman to look at," said Dick, laughing. "Do you hear him?"
Frank heard a hoarse growl from the inside, which might have been "Come in." At any rate, Dick chose so to interpret it, and opened the door.
The boys found themselves in a scantily furnished room, with a close, disagreeable smell pervading the atmosphere. In the corner was a low bedstead, on which lay a tall man, with a long, gray beard, and a disagreeable, almost repulsive, countenance. He turned his eyes, which, contrary to Frank's expectations, were wide open, full upon his visitors.
"What do you want?" he asked querulously. "I was asleep, and you have waked me up."
"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Mills," said Dick; "but I come on business."
"What business can you have with me?" demanded the blind man. "Who are you?"
"I am Dick Rafferty. I black boots in the Park," replied Dick.
