“Aren’t you getting tired of it?” asked Bart one evening when they were starting out for a large lodging house on the Bowery.
“I don’t mind it a bit,” replied John. “I’d do more than this to help find Ned. Besides, it’s a good advertisement for me. You see the fellows in these places hear me, and when they see my name on the theatrical bill boards they’ll come in. You can’t get too much advertising when you’re an actor,” and John looked quite important.
There was a larger crowd than usual in the lodging house that night. John made his way to the front of the room. At first no one paid any attention to the entrance of himself and his friends. But, as soon as John began an imitation of a mocking bird, there was a stir.
“That sounds just like it used to when I was a boy!” exclaimed an old man. “Many and many’s the mornin’ I’ve heard them birds. Can you do a song-sparrow imitation, sonny?”
“Sure,” replied John, and he trilled some sweet high notes.
“My but that’s fine!”
From that John proceeded to imitate a robin and a bob-o-link. He had scarcely finished with the last before there was a stir in one corner of the room. It seemed as if some one was trying to get out.
“Maybe Ned’s there!” exclaimed Bart to Fenn. “Go over and take a look.”
Fenn edged his way through the crowd, but found, instead of some one trying to get out, it was a man trying to make his way closer to where the whistler was. From his appearance the man seemed to have just awakened from a sound sleep on a couple of chairs.
“Where are they?” he exclaimed. “Let me get at ’em!”