"I don't see why I shouldn't be my own master," said Rough and Ready, "as long as I have to support myself."
"Aint I your father?"
"No, you aint," said the newsboy, bitterly. "You married my mother, and killed her with your ill-treatment. I don't want to have anything more to do with you."
"Oh, you're mighty smart. What have you done with your sister?"
"She's safe," said the newsboy, shortly.
"What business had you to take her away from her home?" demanded Martin, angrily.
"I've got the care of her."
"She's my child, and you must bring her back again."
"Your child!" said Rufus, contemptuously. "You did not give a cent towards supporting her. What little you earned you spent for rum. I had to pay all the expenses, and when I bought my sister some new clothes, you were mean enough to carry them off and sell them. If it hadn't been for that, I would have left her a little while longer. But that was more than I could stand, and I've carried her where you won't find her."
"Tell me, instantly, where you have carried her," said James Martin, stung by the newsboy's reproaches, and doggedly resolved to get the little girl back, at all hazards.