“It wouldn’t be safe,” returned George, quickly. “There are policemen at almost every corner, and they would be sure to find us and arrest us as vagrants. They’ll not trouble us as long as we keep moving, and that is the only safe thing we can do. We’re bound to have a hard night of it, Bob, but the sun always brings the day.”
And they did have a hard night of it. They walked the streets for long hours, and became so weary and footsore that they would have been glad to lie down in the first clean place they could find and go to sleep. The sun brought the day, it was true, but it did not bring any improvement in their circumstances. At an early hour they found a man opening a grocery store. George went in and told him their story; and the man, after listening to it, gave him the writing materials he needed, and also a liberal supply of crackers and cheese; but he could not give him work, and neither could he tell them of anybody who wanted to hire a boy.
The two friends sat on a box in front of the store, while they ate their crackers and cheese, and then set out to find the post-office. The letter, which George had written at the grocer’s desk, having been mailed, their next hard work was to find something to do; but their efforts in this direction met with no success. True, they found several business men who wanted help, but they had no use for a cub pilot, or for a boy who had never done anything in his life; and, besides, they asked for something the wanderers could not produce, namely, letters of recommendation. The boys roamed the streets all that day, without anything more to eat, or without stopping to rest; and, when night came, they were almost exhausted, and utterly discouraged. Even George, who had thus far tried to keep up a light heart, was gloomy enough now.
“We can’t walk the streets to-night as we did last night,” said he; “and there is only one place that I know of where we can go to sleep, and that is the station-house.”
George had spoken of this several times during the day, and explained to Bob that the station-house was the place where destitute persons went to obtain a night’s lodging. He added one item of information that, made the cold chills creep all over Bob, and that was that if they once went in there they could not get out until morning, for they would be locked in.
“I believe I’d rather die for want of sleep, than go to such a place as that,” thought Bob, putting his hand first into one pocket and then into another, as he had been doing all day, in the vain hope of finding the missing pocket-book tucked away in some remote corner. “It seems to me that I couldn’t breathe if I were locked up—I couldn’t, possibly—hal-lo!”
While Bob was talking thus to himself he made a discovery that was almost as welcome as the discovery of a gold mine would have been at any other time. In the watch-pocket of his trousers he found a little round ball of paper, and when his fingers came in contact with it a thrill of hope shot through him. Gradually slackening his pace, and allowing George to get a few feet in advance of him, he slyly pulled out the ball, opened it, and found that it was a fifty-cent piece. He had put it in there very carelessly, thinking nothing of it; but it was worth something to him now. His fingers closed about it as eagerly as they had closed about the tin box, when he pulled it out from under the log where Dan Evans had hidden it.
“No station-house for me to-night,” thought he. “This will bring me supper and lodging. It isn’t enough for both, so George must look out for himself. I’ve saved his life twice, paid his expenses almost ever since I met him, and I think it high time I was taking care of number one. Now, how shall I slip away from him?”
This was the problem which Bob now devoted himself to solving. It did not prove to be a very difficult one, for it solved itself. He continued to walk very slowly, while his companion hurried along as if he wanted to leave some of his gloomy thoughts behind him, and presently he was nearly half a block ahead of Bob. He looked back now and then, to see if Bob was coming, and then hurried on as before. Bob kept his eye on him, and, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he turned into a side-street and broke into a run. He was so weak and tired that he could scarcely stand upon his feet, but the prospect of a good supper and a bed to sleep in put life into him, and for two or three blocks he ran at the top of his speed. He turned into every street he came to, and, when he thought he had put a safe distance between himself and his companion, he stopped and sat down on a door-step to recover his breath.
“I had to do it,” thought Bob, who could not help feeling sorry when he thought of George wandering hungry, friendless and alone through the streets of the city. “I couldn’t stand it any longer without food and sleep, and I have just enough money to see me through. Now I wonder if I can find that place again!”