Watching his chance among the score of street cars which pass the post-office corner every minute, the boy dived through the crowd and reached the opposite side of Park Bow.
The newspaper office was but a few steps away, and in a second he was inside.
Quite a number of people were in the counting-room. They were mostly of the poorer class, and were either looking over the want columns of the papers on file or else waiting for answers to advertisements which they had inserted.
Richard joined the line of the latter, and in due turn found himself at the window, slip in hand.
The clerk glanced at the slip and then looked over some letters in a certain box.
"Here you are," he said, and handed back the slip, accompanied by two letters.
"Two answers!" exclaimed Richard as he moved away. "Doc Linyard is certainly in luck. I must hurry back. He will be anxious, I know."
Richard put the slip in his vest-pocket. In doing so he pulled out two one dollar bills which he had taken from his valise in the morning, and folded the paper and money together.
As he shoved the roll into his pocket he did not notice that a hungry pair of eyes, just outside of the swinging glass doors, were watching his every action.
The hungry pair of eyes belonged to a boy of twelve, though he looked older—a street urchin—dirty, ragged, with a pinched face and a starved, ill-clad form. A look of sheer desperation came into these eyes when their owner saw the money, and he trembled with excitement as a certain bold and wicked thought came into his mind—a thought born, not of a bad heart, but of—an empty stomach.