“Yes, didn’t I Mr. President?” he answered, looking for sympathy.
“Yes, boys, he is all right. I understand everything,” said the president.
The badge was returned to the boy and they left the office talking and laughing.
CHAPTER VIII.
The first public appearance of the boys, aside from auxiliary meetings, annual Christmas dinners, attending theatres, entertainments, base-ball games, picnics, etc., and where the boys made a favorable impression upon the public, was the Sunday afternoon meetings held in suitable halls, during the winter season. These were carried on successfully and profitably for several years, until the available halls were too small to accommodate the increasing membership.
The idea of Sunday afternoon meetings suggested itself from what the boys said.
“If we had meetings of our own we would not attend Sunday afternoon theatres.” Three boys, newsboys, were seen coming out of the back door of a saloon on Sunday afternoon, and to the question asked by the president, why they spent their time in the saloon, they replied they had no other place to go to get warm.
“Why not go home?”