“I wouldn’t feel bad about it, if I were you,” said the sergeant compassionately. “That’s a decent way of getting a living.”
“For you, yes,” said the boy mournfully; “for a de Vargas, no;” and dropping his young head on his breast, he walked away.
CHAPTER III.
A CHILD IN TROUBLE.
The sergeant had not seen Eugene for a week; but although he had not seen him, he could not get him out of his mind.
As he sauntered about the park day after day, his vigilant eyes going hither and thither over roads and foot-paths to see that no trespassers loitered in them and defaced the growing trees, or launched boats without permission on the waterways, Eugene’s pale, thoughtful, and rather unhappy face floated constantly before him.
“It’s queer, the interest I take in him,” he said to himself on the last day of the week. “It must be because he spoke up so frank-like, and asked me to be his friend. He’s of a different cut from any other lad I ever saw. Guess I’ll look him up after I get off to-day. I’d like to inquire about him, anyway; and there’s no one to ask here, for the little miss and her nurse have given up coming too. I guess they’ve been promenading on the sunny side of Commonwealth Avenue on account of the wind in the Fens.”
Every evening at six the sergeant went off duty. On that evening, instead of going home, he bent his footsteps toward No. 29 Lovejoy Street.
While turning a corner swiftly he ran into a girl who was hurrying along with her head bent forward.