"No," said the newsboy; "but I had an errand to do before I began."
"Get paid for it?"
"Not unless I pay myself. It was an errand of my own."
"I can't afford to work for myself," said Ben. "A chap asked me, yesterday, why I didn't black my own shoes. I axed him who was to pay me for doin' it. Blackin' costs money, and I can't afford to work for nothin'."
Ben's shoes certainly looked as if no blacking had ever been permitted to soil their virgin purity. Indeed, it is rather a remarkable circumstance that though the boot-blacks generally have at least three-fourths of their time unoccupied, and sometimes remain idle for hours at a time, it never occurs to them (so far, at least, as the writer's observation extends) to use a little of their time and blacking in improving the condition of their own shoes or boots, when they happen to have any. Whether this is owing to a spirit of economy, or to the same cause which hinders a physician from swallowing his own pills, it is not easy to say. The newsboys, on the contrary, occasionally indulge in the luxury of clean shoes.
"Your shoes don't look as if they'd been blacked lately," said Rough and Ready.
"No more they haven't. They can't stand such rough treatment. It would be too much for their delicate constitutions."
This was not improbable, since the shoes in question appeared to be on their last legs, if such an expression may be allowed.
"I like to have my shoes look neat," said Rufus.
"Don't you want a shine?" asked Ben, with a professional air.