Cinders got another bone for his supper—the others had nothing—and then they all went to bed, if lying on the bare floor, with nothing for a pillow can be called going to bed, and dreamed of “the fortune” found at last in the ashes.
The next afternoon, which fortunately was a fine one, for March having “come in like a lion was preparing to go out like a lamb,” Carl came racing up the crazy stairs, taking two steps at a time, and, tossing a bundle of evening papers to Tony, he whistled to Cinders, and away they went.
Poor Carl looked shabby enough, with his toes sticking out of a pair of old shoes—a part of the treasures “scooped” from the ash-heap—and not mates at that, one being as much too large as the other was too small, his tattered jacket and his brimless hat.
But Cinders followed him as faithfully as though he had been clad in a costly suit of the very latest style.
Turning into a handsome, quiet street, Carl stopped at last before a house where three or four rosy-cheeked children were flattening their noses against the panes of the parlor windows, trying to see a doll which another rosy-cheeked child was holding up at a window just opposite.
“Now Cinders, ole feller!” said Carl, while his heart beat fast, “do your best. Bones!” and he began to whistle.
At the first note Cinders stood up on his hind legs, at the second he took his first step forward.
At the beginning of the fourth bar the waltz began; and by this time the rosy-cheeked children had lost all interest in the doll over the way, and were all shouting and calling “Mamma!” and the cook and chambermaid had made their appearance at the area gate.
The march and waltz having been gone through with twice, Cinders stood on his head—“shure,” said the cook, “I couldn’t do it betther myself”—tumbled quickly to his feet again, nodded affably once to the right, once to the left, and once to the front of him, and held out his right paw.
“He’s the cliverest baste ever I seen,” said the chambermaid, “so he is!” and she threw a five cent piece in Carl’s old hat; and, at the same moment the window was opened, and out flew a perfect shower of pennies, while the little girl across the way kept shouting, “Come here, ragged little boy! Come here, funny doggie! Oh, why don’t you come here?”