"That settles me," Teddy said, as if speaking to himself; and then, without particular animation, he inquired, "What's the cost of the boxes?"
"Oh, the fellers don't buy these; they make 'em. All you've got to do is ask some man in a store for one, an', if he gives it to you, find a chunk of wood an' whittle out this top part. It's the blackin' what takes the profits off. I paid twenty cents for that bottle last Monday, an' it's more'n half gone already."
Teddy ceased jingling his coins, and was about to turn away, when his new acquaintance asked: "Was you thinkin' of shinin'?"
"Eh?"
"I mean was you goin' inter the business?"
"No, I can't; haven't got money enough. I reckon I'll have to sell papers for a while."
"You'll be jest as rich," the small boy said as he added another smudge of blacking to his nose by rubbing it in a thoughtful manner. "You see, when it rains, the fellers can sell papers all the same; but we have to lay off 'cause nobody wants their boots shined in wet weather. Where do you live?"
"Well, about anywhere, now. You see, I jest come down from Saranac, to find out how I could earn my livin'."
"What was you doin' up there?"
"I worked for Farmer Taylor a spell, but he wouldn't give me more'n my clothes; an' when a feller has to work a year on the farm for sich a rig-out as I've got here, it don't seem as if he'd get rich very soon."