" He went down-stairs when the boat started, an' he told me he'd beat me black an' blue if I spoke to anybody while he was gone."
"An' prob'ly he would," said Joe. "If he dared to reg'larly steal you he'd dare to do anything else; but I'll get away before he comes up, an' I'll go an' tell the captain of the boat. Then t rather think the man will wish he'd never'd said anything about a pony, for he'll be arrested."
" No, no, don't! " cried Ned, "he'd be sure to kill me if you should do that, an' then what good would it do me? "
"But you hain't goin' to let him carry you off, be you?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Ned, and he began to cry piteously again, while Joe tried to soothe him by wiping away the big tears with the cuff of his jacket.
"I think you'd better let me tell the captain," he said.
"I can't, 'cause he knows another man on the boat, an' one of them would be sure to kill me. Why won't you let me just go with you?"
"I would if I knew where I was goin'; but you see, I'm most as bad off as you are;" and then Joe told him of his misfortune in having become an involuntary passenger, concluding his story by saying, "An' I've got a mother that'll feel just as bad as yours will; it will be worse for "her, too, 'cause she says now that father's dead I'm all that she's got, an' every cent I make I carry home to her, 'cause she has to work hard to get money to pay the rent."
Joe could understand very readily, by Ned's clothing, that their homes were widely different.Had it not been for his uniform, the messenger boy would have worn a very shabby suit of clothes, while Ned was not only dressed expensively, but he wore what was, to Joe, the very height of extravagance - a gold ring.
"Even if you don't know where you're goin', take me with you," said Ned. "If you'd help me, I'd try to get away from that man, - there he comes now; don't 'let him whip me.".