"It looks like it," said the newsboy soberly.
"What shall we do next?"
"I hardly know, George. I hate to give up. The stuff we lost cost too much money."
"Do you suppose either Darnley or Snocks went home?"
"It's possible."
"We ought to visit their homes and make sure."
The matter was talked over for several minutes, and it was finally agreed that Nelson should visit the homes of the two boys while George Van Pelt returned to the news stand to relieve Paul.
Billy Darnley lived on the fourth floor of a large rear tenement on one of the dirtiest streets of the East Side. To get to the place our hero had to pass through an alleyway filled with rubbish and teeming with neglected children. Hardened as he was to the rougher side of city life he could not help but shudder at the sight.
"Poor things! they are a heap worse off than myself," was his thought.
At a corner of the alleyway he ran across a small girl and one several years older. The little girl was a cripple, and the larger girl was making fun of her deformity.