Jo used to say he had never had but one friend.
It was one cold Winter night, when he was shivering in a door-way near his crossing, that a dark-haired, rough-bearded man turned to look at him, and then came back and began to talk to him.
"Have you a friend, boy?" he asked presently.
"No, never 'ad none."
"Neither have I. Not one. Take this, and Good-night," and so saying the man, who looked very poor and shabby, put into Jo's hand the price of a supper and a night's lodging.
Often afterwards the stranger would stop to talk with Jo, and give him money, Jo firmly believed, whenever he had any to give. When he had none, he would merely say, "I am as poor as you are to-day, Jo," and pass on.
One day, Jo was fetched away from his crossing to a public-house, where the Coroner was holding an Inquest—an "Inkwich" Jo called it.
"Did the boy know the deceased?" asked the Coroner.
Indeed Jo had known him; it was his only friend who was dead.
"He was very good to me, he was," was all poor Jo could say.