“Indeed? Nick Parsons, I suppose. Is it?”
“No’m. I’m Nicky Dodd. I got a father. He’s Dodd. So be I, ’course. But the fellers stuck it onto me ’cause–’cause onct I went to a Sunday-school.”
“Don’t you go now, Nick Dodd?”
“No, indeedy! Ketch me!” laughed the boy, watching the gleam of the money his questioner held so lightly between her gloved fingers. What if she should drop it! If some other child should see it fall and seize it before he could! “Was–was you a-wantin’ somethin’ of me, lady?”
“Yes, I was. Will you show me the way to Captain Beck’s house?”
Now Nick loved Glory as well as Billy did and he had as fully understood from her warning gesture that he was to give this stranger no information concerning her or her grandfather, but, alas! he also loved money, and he so rarely had it. Just then, too, the “Biggest Show On Earth” was up at Madison Square Garden and, if Nick had not remembered that enticing circus, he might not have betrayed his friend. Yet those wonderful trained animals—Ah!
“Fer that quarter? Ye-es, ma’am, I–I–will,” stammered the lad.
So Miss Laura again left her carriage and walked the narrow, dirty length of the Lane, past the sharp bend which gave it its name of “Elbow,” far down among the warehouses and wharves crowding the approach to the bridge. As she walked, she still asked questions and found that all the dwellers in the Lane were better known by their employments than their real names, how that Glory’s deftness with a needle had made her “Take-a-Stitch,” and anybody might guess why Jane was called “Posy” or Captain Beck had become the “Singer.” Besides, she discovered that this ragged newsboy was as fond and proud of his “Lane” as she was of her avenue, and that if she had any pity to bestow, she needn’t waste it on him or his mates and that—
“There ’tis! The littlest house in Ne’ York,” concluded Nick, proudly pointing forward, seizing the coin she held so carelessly, and vanishing.
“Well! have I become a scarecrow that all these children desert me so suddenly!” exclaimed Miss Laura, looking helplessly about and lifting her skirts the higher to avoid the dirty suds which somebody was emptying into the gutter.