CHAPTER XVI.
THE OLD COMPANIONS.
It was noon on Monday. Will spent his dinner-hour in Independence Square, a spot sacred to his old associates of boot-blacking propensities.
He had given up eating for the pleasure of interviewing. He had already had an earnest talk with some half a dozen of the boys, and now approached another, who was just entering the Square from Walnut street.
The latter was a boy of Will’s own age, a bare-footed, bare-armed, ragged young citizen, with a keen, wide-awake look on his not overly clean face.
“Hallo, Joe!” cried Will.
“Well, I’ll be swagged if it ain’t Willful Will!” cried Joe, taking Will’s offered hand.
“How goes it, old crony?” said Will.
“Old-fashioned. You’ve been on the coast and know the ropes. Well, if you ain’t got up gallus! New shoes, and paper-collar, and a ribbon on his hat! Must have dropped into a fortune.”
“I am in a store, Joe. We must dress, you know, in better toggery than you want here.”
“In a store, hey? Know’d you’d come to something. Does it pay, Will? Ain’t it dreadful wearing? Seems to me I’d seem like a sparrow in a cage.”