Ben pitied him and would gladly have spared him this, but the law was inexorable.
Grayson tried to shake off the officer’s hand. “Not so fast, my friend,” said the officer.—Page [175].
Ben Bruce.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A STRANGE ADVENTURE.
The summer passed slowly. Business was unusually dull even for this time of the year, and Ben’s earnings were proportionately small. Week by week he was obliged to draw from his fund in the savings bank until he had less than five dollars to his credit there.
He had not written to his mother or to Albert Graham for a considerable time, not having any good news to communicate.
How was he coming out? That was the question which he anxiously asked himself without obtaining any satisfactory answer. He began to think that he might feel compelled to pawn his watch once more, with a very remote chance of redeeming it.
It was about this time that he had a surprising adventure. He was selling papers at ten o’clock in the morning when suddenly a lady, handsomely dressed, stopped opposite him and regarded him attentively.