“I’ll git all the papers for a while, till you kinder git used to it, an’ then you can git ’em for yerself. Now come over here on the Square an’ sing out, as loud as you know how, jest what I do.”
Then, for example, Johnny began shouting his wares in a way that was more noisy than distinct. But after he had repeated it several times, selling two papers in the meanwhile, Paul had no more idea of what he said than if he had been speaking in a foreign tongue.
Johnny would have lost a good deal of the morning trade, which was quite brisk, in his efforts to start Paul aright, if Ben had not come along, and offered to give the beginner his first lesson.
Paul found it rather difficult to make as much noise as Ben seemed to think necessary, for the sound of his own voice frightened him; but in the course of an hour, during which time his instructor alternately blackened boots and gave him lessons, he had got along so well that he was selling quite a number of papers. His success did a great deal towards helping him fight off the homesick feeling that would come over him.
At first none of the other newsboys paid any attention to him, perhaps because they were too busy; but as trade began to grow dull they commenced to gather around Paul, until he was thoroughly alarmed at some of the demonstrations they made.
One boy, considerably larger than he was, insisted that if he wanted to sell papers he should go somewhere else to do it, because that particular portion of the city was under the immediate control of himself and his friends. Paul made no reply, for the very good reason that he did not know but that the claim which this boy set up was a just one, and he remained silent, which caused his tormentors to think—exactly what was the true state of the case—that he was afraid of them.
One boy, the same who had first spoken, began pushing him aside, and poor Paul, seeing at least a dozen boys, nearly all of them larger than he was, standing in threatening attitudes, looked around in vain for his two friends, who had promised to care for him.
“You want to get out of this, young feller, an’ you don’t want to show your nose ’round here agin,” said the largest member of the party, as he pushed Paul rudely aside with one hand, and with the other attempted to take his papers from him.
It was this, more than anything else, which made Paul resist; for even if he had no right on that particular spot, they surely had no right to take his papers from him; and besides, they were Johnny’s property, not his. Therefore he felt he should defend them all the more strongly.