"I live"—— Then he stopped. "I live in—— Do you mean now?" he added simply.
"Yes."
There was another pause. "I don't know, sir; maybe they won't let me stay."
Another foolish question. Of course, if he had left home for good, and was now on his way to the asylum for the first time, his present home was this hack.
But he had won my interest now. His words had come in tones of such directness, and were so calm, and gave so full a statement of the exact facts, that I leaned over quickly, and began studying him a little closer.
I saw that this scrap of a boy wore a gray woolen suit, and I noticed that the cap was made of the same cloth as the jacket, and that both were the work of some inexperienced hand, with uneven, unpressed seams—the seams of a flat-iron, not a tailor's goose. Instinctively my mind went back to what his earlier life had been.
"Have you got any brothers and sisters, my boy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know, sir; I was too little to remember."