“Oh, no; he’s nigh on to thirty, but you see he’s 155 sorter wild, and I’m jest afraid in a big place like this he’ll git into something awful. They say they’s so much mischief goin’ on here.”
“How did you expect to find him? Have you his address?”
“Oh, dear, no; all I’ve got to go by is his picture.”
Miss Elsworth smiled.
“That is rather a slim guide. How did you expect to find his place of residence by that?”
“Why, I jest thought I might show it to folks now and then, and perhaps they’d know him.”
Miss Elsworth smiled again. The idea of coming to New York to hunt up a prodigal son, with simply a photograph to aid her, seemed extremely ludicrous.
“And to think that I am here, all alone, without hardly any money. Why, I don’t believe I’d ’a’ dared to come to New York if I’d ’a’ had forty dreams, if I’d knowed what a terrible big place it was.”
“What did you intend to do while you are here?”
“Why, I thought as like as not I could get a chance to work. You see, I’m a awful good cook. Perhaps you know of some one that wants one?”