“Aw! tell him to cut it out, cut it out, he kin do it just the same as we do,” put in a little bootblack.
“Yes, but you don’t have to go out on the street and takes what ever you kin carry home, like I do,” he replied.
“Well, if your mother makes you do that we won’t do a thing to her,” said a seller, who claimed to own four corners.
The conversation ended by the president giving the new boy a membership card with instructions that he must report in thirty days.
Soon after he left the office, three members of the executive committee hastened to his home. The mother was warned that “this sending your boy out to steal must stop, and stop quick.” They listened to no arguments, simply gave advice and orders, what must be done, and left.
A month passes and the day named for the new applicant to receive his badge, found him at the president’s office, as is usual with boys, an hour before office hours.
“Gee, but I have lots of good friends. Some of the boys took me to see a show, some let me sell papers on their corners, but I had to cut out swearing.”
The numbered badge was given him.
A member of the executive committee who had him in charge reported: