This was a puzzling question.
If the newsboy had been a capitalist, or in receipt of a handsome income, the question would have been a very simple one. He would only need to have bought a "Morning Herald," and, from the long list of boarding and lodging houses, have selected one which he judged suitable. But his income was small, and he had himself and his sister to provide for. He knew that it must be lonely for Rose to pass the greater part of the day without him; yet it seemed to be necessary. If only there was some suitable person for her to be with. The loss of her mother was a great one to Rose, for it left her almost without a companion.
So Rough and Ready knit his brows in perplexing thought.
"I can't tell where we'd better go, Rose, yet," he said at last. "We'll have to look round a little, and perhaps we'll come across some good place."
"I hope it'll be some place where father won't find us," said Rose.
"Don't call him father," said the newsboy, hastily. "He isn't our father."
"No," said Rose, "I know that,—that is not our own father."
"Do you remember our own father, Rose? But of course you don't, for you were only a year old when he died."
"How old were you, Rufus?"
"I was nine."