“Sure! I know dozens of ’em,” was her rather curt reply. “But, Gee! you don’t want a very cheap one, I guess! You don’t look as if you had to count your pennies!”
“But I do,” said Marion, smiling, as she comprehended the look: “and I’d be very much obliged if you could give me some addresses.”
The cashier scribbled two or three on a piece of paper. “Here, I guess these are about the thing you want,” she said, handing it to Marion.
“I’ll bet she has run away from home,” she said to a waiter, as Marion thanked her and moved away. “She looks like a rich girl all right, but it’s ten to one she’s had a scrap with her folks! She’ll get sick of it, I’m thinking, especially if she goes to boarding.”
When Marion reached the sidewalk she opened Bert’s letter and read it again. It was a Bowery lodging-house that he was stopping at when he wrote, and she decided to hunt him up and consult with him before going to her uncle.
“He may be able to advise me,” she thought, “and I need a friend now if I ever did, for I am alone in this big city with only five dollars! Oh, shall I ever be able to find my poor sister?”
As she walked slowly along the street she studied the street signs carefully, and more than once she saw both women and men half stop to stare at her.
Finally she saw a big man in a blue uniform, and knowing that he must be a policeman she went up boldly and asked him to direct her to the lodging-house.
“Is there some one there you know?” asked the officer kindly, “’cause if there isn’t you’d better keep out of that neighborhood. I can see you’re a stranger, although you don’t look like a country girl by a jug-full!”
“Well, I am nothing else,” answered Marion, smiling a little. “But I am not afraid to go to the lodging-house if you will tell me the way. I can take care of myself, I am sure, and there is a boy there that I must see, sir.”