"Five shillings. When you get it changed come to my office—that's the
place.
Now wait a bit, there's time enough: you need not run a headlong race.
Where do you live?" "Most anywhere. We hired a stable-loft to day.
Me and two others." "And you thought, the fruiterer's window pretty, hey?"
"Or were you hungry?" "Just a bit," he answered bravely as he might.
"I couldn't buy a breakfast, sir, and had no money left last night."
"And you are cold?" "Ay, just a bit; I don't mind cold." "Why, that is
strange!"
He smiled and pulled his ragged cap, and darted off to get the "change."
So, with a half unconscious sigh, I sought my office desk again;
An hour or more my busy wits found work enough with book and pen.
But when the mantel clock struck six I started with a sudden thought,
For there beside my hat and cloak lay those six papers I had bought.
Why where's the boy? and where's the 'change' he should have brought an
hour ago?
Ah, well! ah, well! they're all alike! I was a fool to tempt him so,
Dishonest! Well, I might have known; and yet his face seemed candid too.
He would have earned the difference if he had brought me what was due.
"But caution often comes too late." And so I took my homeward way.
Deeming distrust of human kind the only lesson of the day.
Just two days later, as I sat, half dozing, in my office chair,
I heard a timid knock, and called in my brusque fashion, "Who is there?"
An urchin entered, barely seven—the same Scotch face, the same blue eyes—
And stood, half doubtful, at the door, abashed at my forbidding guise.
"Sir, if you please, my brother Jim—the one you give the crown, you know—
He couldn't bring the money, sir, because his back was hurted so.
"He didn't mean to keep the 'change.' He got runned over, up the street;
One wheel went right across his back, and t'other forewheel mashed his feet.
They stopped the horses just in time, and then they took him up for dead,
And all that day and yesterday he wasn't rightly in his head.
"They took him to the hospital—one of the newsboys knew 'twas Jim—
And I went, too, because, you see, we two are brothers, I and him.
He had that money in his hand, and never saw it any more.
Indeed, he didn't mean to steal! He never stole a pin before.
"He was afraid that you might think, he meant to keep it, anyway;
This morning when they brought him to, he cried because he couldn't pay.
He made me fetch his jacket here; it's torn and dirtied pretty bad;
It's only fit to sell for rags, but then, you know, it's all he had.
"When he gets well—it won't be long—if you will call the money lent.
He says he'll work his fingers off but what he'll pay you every cent."
And then he cast a rueful glance at the soiled jacket where it lay,
"No, no, my boy! take back the coat. Your brother's badly hurt you say?