"No, he's alive, but he isn't my father, and I won't own him as such. If you want to know where he is, I will tell you. He is lying drunk on the floor of a room on Leonard Street, or at least he was half an hour ago."
The newsboy spoke with some bitterness, for he never could think with any patience of the man who had embittered the last years of his mother's life, and had that very morning nearly deprived his little sister of the clothing which he had purchased for her.
"Have you left him, then?" asked the seamstress.
"Yes, we have left him, and we do not mean to go near him again."
"Then you mean to take the whole care of your little sister, Rufus?"
"Yes."
"It is a great responsibility for a boy like you."
"It is what I have been doing all along. Mr. Martin hasn't earned his share of the expenses. I've had to take care of us both, and him too, and then he didn't treat us decently. I'll tell you what he did this morning."
Here he told the story of the manner in which his little sister had been robbed of her dress.
"You don't think I'd stand that, Miss Manning, do you?" he said, lifting his eyes to hers.