While they were talking, and paying no heed to the fact that Master Jones was making sundry mysterious gestures to acquaintances whom they passed, Josiah had followed the guide from Chatham Street to Center, and not less than half a dozen disreputable looking boys were watching his every movement with the keenest anticipations of pleasure.
On arriving at what Master Shindle thought was an enormous building, because it was many sizes larger than his father’s barn, Sim halted, and, pointing to the long flight of stairs leading from the street, said:—
“Go straight up there ’till you get to the top. Then open the door, an’ tell the Mayor you’ve come for the dollar an’ a half.”
Josiah obeyed without hesitation, but on reaching the first landing his suspicions were aroused.
Never having visited a City Hall before, his ideas regarding one were rather vague; but he fancied the Mayor would be found in a different kind of a place, and, despite his ignorance, the many business signs in the hall-way soon convinced him he was not in a municipal building.
He hesitated, turned, and was on the point of asking for further particulars from the obliging Sim, when he heard a roar of laughter from the foot of the stairs.
“If the Mayor gives money to folks from the country, I reckon Tom an’ Bob would have told me last summer,” he said to himself. “That feller is makin’ a fool of me.”
Then he descended to the sidewalk, and stood looking about him in perplexity.
He had paid no particular attention to the route taken when he left Chatham Street, and not many seconds elapsed before the very unpleasant fact that he was lost presented itself.
During several moments Josiah stood silent and motionless, trying to combat the fear which came upon him with the knowledge that he was separated from his friends, and had no definite idea of where they might be found.