“In course I do. I've smoked for four or five years.”
“How old are you?”
“The old woman says I'm ten. She ought to know.”
“It isn't good for boys to smoke,” said Herbert, gravely.
“Oh, bosh! Dry up! All us boys smoke.”
Herbert felt that his advice was not called for, and he came to business.
“I'll give you fifteen cents,” he said, “if you'll show me a good, cheap boarding house.”
“Well,” said the Arab, “business is poor, and I'll do it for once. Come along.”
Herbert concluded from the boy's appearance that he would be more likely to know of cheap than of fashionable boarding houses; but it did not occur to him that there was such a thing as being too cheap. He realized it when the boy brought him to the door of a squalid dwelling in a filthy street, and, pointing to it, complacently remarked: “That's the place you want—that's Rafferty's.”
Herbert stared at it in dismay. Accustomed to the utmost neatness, he was appalled at the idea of lodging in such a place.