“No place in partick’lar,” answered Skinny. “Mebbe I’ll go down to der Newsboy’s Home an’ brace de boss for a week’s lodgins, an’ a couple of dimes fer ter buy extrys wid.”
The boy announced his intentions in a matter-of-fact way that showed plainly what his manner of life had been, but Bruce was amazed to think that anyone could leave a sick bed and go out without friends to face the world as coolly and calmly as if he were going to a comfortable home. All this time the boys had been sitting in extension chairs beside their beds and when Bruce had sealed his letter he went out to the closet in which his clothes and a few things that Chief Trask had sent him were kept, took from an inside vest pocket his pocket-book and found that it contained just eight dollars and forty-four cents. Taking exactly half of his fortune, he went back to where Skinny was seated and placed it in his lap.
“There,” he remarked, “that’s just half my pile, Skinny, and perhaps the time will come when I shall want you to divide your pile with me.”
Skinny looked at the money in his lap and then picked it up, carefully counted it, and rung one of the silver dollars with his teeth as if in doubt of its being genuine. Then he fixed his keen little blue eyes on Bruce and seemed to be trying to find some ulterior motive for his generosity. It was seldom, indeed, that anyone had reposed confidence in Skinny to the extent of lending him nearly five dollars, and he could not understand why anyone should do such a thing unless he had some object to gain. But his scrutiny of the boy’s clear, honest face failed to reveal to him any secret or sinister design, and so, after a moment’s hesitation, he said cautiously “Is dis on de level?”
“That’s all right,” remarked Bruce, who had winced perceptibly under the boy’s squirrel like gaze, “You’re welcome to that as long as you choose to keep it.”
“Say, boss,” continued Skinny after another pause, during which he carefully thumbed over his suddenly acquired wealth, “dat’s de white ting ter do, and I’ll hump meself when I gets well to pay it off.”
Bruce had winced under the boy’s sharp look because he felt that he suspected him of some ulterior motive, and he knew that he had an ulterior motive, which was to place Skinny under still further obligations to him in order that he might be depended upon to aid him in his search for the man who had once known his father. Never since the morning when the newsboy recognized Laura Van Kuren had Bruce referred in any way to the mysterious scarred and bearded stranger by whom the boy had been employed. He did not wish to exhibit any interest in him. The time would come for that, he said to himself, when he had left the hospital, and it was with this object in view that he had devoted a great deal of his time during his convalescence to cultivating an intimacy with Skinny and deepening in the heart of that young vagabond the feelings of gratitude and regard which he already felt for the gallant young fire laddie who had carried him from the burning building.
It was Saturday morning when the boys said good-bye to Miss Ingraham and their fellow patients in the casualty ward, and went out once more into the open street. Together they trudged along Fifteenth Street to Broadway where Bruce took a car for the quarters, not feeling strong enough to walk any further, and Skinny kept on toward Third Avenue, intending to go down to the Newsboys’ Home. Just before they parted, Skinny surprised his friend by saying in a careless way, “Boss, you reck’lect that party I was speakin’ of as sent me on de errands? Well, I kin fin’ him any time yer want him. Dat’s all.” Then he nodded his head and slouched across the street, a grotesque, ragged figure, while Bruce climbed into the horse-car and wondered how on earth the boy could ever have discovered that he felt any interest whatever in the man of whom they had spoken but once. But Bruce did not know how contact with the rough side of city life sharpens the senses of the young, nor did he know that, during those long days in the hospital ward, he had been very closely watched and studied by the little vagabond beside him.
Chapter XXIII.
Meantime things had not been going on smoothly at the home of the Van Kuren children. Mr. Van Kuren, although a devoted and careful father, was so much engrossed in his business that he had comparatively little time to devote to his children, and since the death of their mother, their education had necessarily been left largely in the hands of tutors, governesses and instructors of all sorts. The discovery that the young boy from the fire department whom he had been inclined to regard with so much favor had taken advantage of his intimacy with the children to conduct a clandestine correspondence with the daughter of the house, annoyed Mr. Van Kuren excessively, and he determined to take immediate steps to prevent any repetition of the offense or continuance of the friendship. It was chiefly for this purpose that he finally made up his mind to do what he had long contemplated, and one morning he summoned both children to his study, and threw them into a fever of excitement and delight by bidding them prepare at once for a trip to Europe.