"He calls himself my father—not my real father, you know; only he says he adopted me when I was a little kid. Everybody around there calls me Nelson, or Sam Pepper's boy."
"I see. And he sends you out to sell papers?"
"No, sir; I go out on my own hook."
"But you ought to go to school."
"I go to night school sometimes, when Sam lets me."
"Didn't he ever send you to day school?"
At this Nelson, for so we will call him for the present, shook his head.
"Sam don't like the schools. He says if I go I'll get too smart for him. He says I am almost too smart already."
"Too bad!" The stout gentleman was going to say something more, but suddenly remembered about the fire in Harlem. "Perhaps I'll see you again, Nelson. I can't stop now. Do you know why I forgot myself in the street? It was because that fire proved to be in an apartment house that I purchased only a month ago."
"Your house! That's a big loss, sir."