HE SHOWED THEM IN PROOF OF THE TRUTHFULNESS OF HIS STORY.
When, from the appearance of the buildings opposite, he knew that he was back again to the point from which he had started, he learned to his dismay that the steamer had been gone fully an hour. At first he could hardly realize that he had been left behind, while his parents had started on such a long voyage, and he could not account for the neglect of his newly-made friend in not telling them that he had gone on shore, unless it was owing to the fact that he had neglected to point out his father, or to tell what his name was.
After he had fully realized that he was alone in a great city, with no means of providing himself with food and shelter, save through the medium of two very nice tops and six cents, he started in search of the depot which they had arrived at, intending to take the next train back to Chicago, providing the conductor would take his tops in payment. But he could not find the depot, and at nearly seven o’clock in the evening he had stopped to ask advice from two boys of about his own age—neither one of them was over eleven years old—in the hope that they could straighten matters out for him.
These two were very much inclined to doubt his story until he showed the tops as proof, and even then they would have looked upon some portions of it as false had he not also produced the six cents, and with three of them stood treat all round to that sticky delicacy known as “pea-nut taffy.”
Then they believed all he had told them, and adjourning to a very broad door-step near by, they sat down to consult upon what it was best for him to do. To begin with, and in order that he might understand the case fully, one of the boys asked, as he struggled with the sticky dainty,
“What’s yer name?”
“Paul Weston,” replied the stranger.
“Well, my name’s Johnny Jones, though the boys call me Shiner,” said the boy with the papers under his arm, “an’ my chum here’s named Ben Treat. Now you know us; an’ we’ll call you Polly, so’s to make you feel more’s if you was home.”
Paul was not just certain as to how far this nickname would go towards making him feel at home, but he did not venture to make any remark upon it, preferring rather that his own condition, and how he could better it, should be the subject under discussion.
Johnny Jones told him at once that his idea of trying to get home by the cars without money enough in his pocket to buy his ticket was an impossibility; for he and Ben had tried riding on the cars without paying for it, even a short distance, and had always come to grief because of either the conductor or the brakemen, whom they looked upon as the natural enemies of boys. It was useless, therefore, to think of getting to Chicago in that way, and Johnny appealed to Ben to decide whether he was right or not.