"There, I know'd I'd mislaid 'em," she said, in a tone of disappointment. "Can you read, boy?"
"More or less," said Rough and Ready. "What is it you wanted?"
"Why, you see I live to Danbury when I'm at home, and I heerd tell that Roxanna Jane Pinkham was married, and I want to know ef it's true. Maybe you'll find it in the marriages."
"All right, ma'am," said Rough and Ready, glancing over the paper till he came to the list of marriages.
"Is this it, ma'am?" asked the newsboy, reading, "In Danbury, Miss Roxanna Jane Pinkham to Pompey Smith, a very respectable colored man from New York."
"Massy sakes!" ejaculated the old lady. "Has Roxanna married a nigger? Well, she must have been put to't for a husband. Thank you, boy. I'd buy your paper, but I only wanted to know for certain if Roxanna was married. That does beat me,—her marryin' a colored person!"
"That's a profitable customer," thought the newsboy. "I guess she won't find that marriage in any of the other papers. This one has got it exclusive."
Immediately upon her return, the old lady spread the news of Roxanna Pinkham's strange marriage, and wrote comments upon it to her daughter in Danbury. When the report was indignantly denied by the lady most interested, and she threatened to sue the old lady for circulating a slanderous report, the latter stoutly asserted that she heard it read from a New York paper, and she had no doubt there was something in it, or it wouldn't have got into print.
This trick was hardly justifiable in the newsboy; but he was often troubled by people who wanted to look at his papers, but were not willing to buy them, and he repaid himself by some imaginary news of a startling description.
After disposing of his last paper, he procured a fresh supply, and was engaged in selling these, when, on looking up, he saw advancing towards him James Martin, his stepfather.