"So I am relieved by the charity of a bootblack," murmured the other, thoughtfully. "The boy has a heart."
"Can't you get nothin' to do?" asked Julius, out of curiosity.
"Yes, yes, enough to do, but no money," said the other.
"Look here," said the barkeeper, "don't you eat all there is on the table. That won't pay on a five-cent drink—that won't."
He had some cause for speaking, for the man, who was almost famished, had already eaten heartily. He desisted as he heard these words, and turned to go out.
"I feel better," he said. "I was very weak when I came in. Thank you, my boy," and he offered his hand to Julius, which the latter took readily.
"It ain't nothin'," he said, modestly.
"To me it is a great deal. I hope we shall meet again."
Street boy as he was, Julius had found some one more destitute than himself, and out of his own poverty he had relieved the pressing need of another. It made him feel lighter-hearted than usual. It was the consciousness of having done a good action, which generally brings its own reward, however trifling it may have been.
Though himself uneducated, he noticed that the man whom he had relieved used better language than was common among those with whom he was accustomed to associate, and he wondered how such a man should have become so poor.