“Oh, they do! And can’t you introduce me? Or don’t you like to?”
“I suppose I can,” laughed Michael, “if you really want me to, but I’m afraid you’ll turn and run when you see them. You see they’re not very—handsome. They’re not what you’re used to. You wouldn’t want to know them.”
“But you do.”
“I had to,” said Michael desperately. “They needed something and I had to help them!”
Up to this point Will French had been sure that Michael had fallen into the hands of a set of sharpers, but something in his companion’s tone made him turn and look, and he saw Michael’s face uplifted in the light of the street lamp, glowing with, a kind of intent earnestness that surprised and awed him.
“Look here, man,” he said. “Tell me who they are, and what you are doing, anyway.”
Michael told him in a few words, saying little about himself, or his reason for being interested in the alley in the first place. There were a few neglected newsboys, mere kids. He was trying to teach them a few things, reading and figures and a little manual training. Something to make life more than a round of suffering and sin.
“Is it settlement work?” asked French. He was puzzled and interested.
“No,” explained Michael, “there’s a settlement, but it’s too far away and got too big a district to reach this alley. It’s just my own little work.”
“Who pays you for it?”