The night was fast approaching.
It was necessary Josiah should ask some one to direct him to his friend’s home.
He was on the point of speaking with an Italian chestnut vendor, when a tiny girl, hardly more than ten years of age, clad in a ragged dress which had originally been brown, with the remains of a faded shawl over her shoulders, and the veriest apology of a straw hat on her head, stepped in front of him as she asked:—
“Don’t you want to buy some matches?”
Josiah dropped his valise and looked at her in astonishment. That a child so small should be out on the street at such an hour, was quite as surprising to him as that she should be insufficiently clad on a night when thick clothing seemed an absolute necessity.
He stood gazing at her as if she was some curiosity which had escaped from the museum below, until she repeated the question, and then he replied gravely:—
“I don’t believe so; you see, I haven’t learned to smoke, an’ what would I do with ’em?”
The girl continued her search for customers, Josiah watching her intently, forgetting for the time being his own forlorn condition as he noted the many efforts and equally as many failures to dispose of her wares.
Ten minutes passed, and she had not sold a single box.
Just for an instant there was a lull in the living tide, and the child had again approached Josiah, but without paying any attention to him.