"I ain't so sure," the boy with the blackened nose said, as he surveyed the stranger. "You seem to be rigged out pretty swell, an' I guess they fed you well enough—gave you all you wanted, eh?"
"Oh, yes, I got enough to eat, an' a fair place to sleep in; but it seems as though a feller like me ought er have more'n that, if he works hard all day for it."
"Well, I s'pose he had; but you see there's a good many times when business is dull 'round here, an' if you haven't got the cash to pay right up to dots for a room, you'll have a chance to sleep where you can. I've been thinkin' of goin' on to a farm, myself; but I don't seem to get ahead fast enough to make a break."
Teddy was rather pleased with his new acquaintance. The red-haired boy was the first in the city who had treated him with the slightest degree of friendliness, and it would have been gross carelessness to neglect him.
"What's your name?" he asked, as he moved slowly toward one of the benches, with an air which invited the bootblack to sit down.
"Well, it's Joseph Williams; but nobody 'round here calls me that. The fellers sing out 'Carrots' when they want me, 'cause you see my hair is red."
"Yes, I could tell that in the dark," Teddy said with a smile, as he looked at Master Williams's flame-colored head.
"I don't care what they call me. If it does 'em any good to sing out 'Carrots' whenever I go by, why, let 'em do it. But that's what makes me think 'bout goin' to farmin'."
"What is?"
"'Cause they yell so much 'bout carrots. I don't know as I'd like sich things, for I never eat any; but it seems as if a feller that's so red-headed as I am b'longs in the country."