A shadow rested on the boy's bright face.
"I didn't have to work then, sir," he said. "My father was alive, and he was well off. We lived in a nice house up town, and I went to a private school. But all at once father failed, and soon afterward he died, and then everything was changed. I don't like to think about it, sir."
The gentleman's interest was strongly excited.
"It is a sad story," he said. "Is your mother living?"
"Yes, sir. The worst of it is, that I don't make enough to support us both, and she has to work, too."
"What does she do?"
"She makes vests for a man on Chatham street."
"I hope she is well paid."
"That she is not. He only allows her twenty cents apiece."