“I dare say they thought me a very tiresome little boy, but they were very kind. The young man, my first friend, brought me out a chair, and then I heard them talking about what was to be done. They had asked me my name, which I told them, but I couldn’t tell them the name of the hotel where we were staying, for I didn’t know it, and I wouldn’t tell them that it was in a street close by, because I was afraid they would carry me off there. I think I was getting rather confused by this time; I could only remember that I must stay where I was if ever I was to see papa again. I heard them saying that the gentleman had only given his country address, as the toys were to be sent straight home.
“After awhile, in spite of the cold and my unhappiness, I think I must have fallen asleep a little. I was almost too young to be anxious about my father and to fear that some accident must have happened to him, but yet I can quite remember that I had really very dreadful feelings. As the evening went on and the street grew darker and darker, and there began to be fewer passers-by, it seemed worse and worse. Once I remember bursting out into fresh crying at seeing, by the light of the gas-lamp, a little boy passing along chattering merrily to the gentleman whose hand he was holding. I felt like a poor shipwrecked mariner on a desert island—all the lonelier that I was in the middle of a great town.
“No doubt the shop people must have been getting uncomfortable and wondering what was to come of it. It must have seemed very strange to them; and, at last, the head man came out again and spoke to me—this time rather sharply, perhaps he thought it the best thing to do—
”‘Young gentleman,’ he said, ‘this really can’t go on! You must see you can’t sit there the whole night. Try and think again of the name of the place you’re staying at.’
”‘I don’t know it,’ I said, and I dare say I seemed rather sulky, for he grew crosser.
”‘Well, if you can’t or won’t tell us, something’ll have to be done,’ he answered. ‘It’s the police’s business, not ours, to look after strayed children, or children that won’t say where they come from. Here, Smith,’ he called out to the young shopman, ‘just look up and down the street if there’s a policeman to be seen.’
“He didn’t really mean to do anything unkind, but he thought it the best way to frighten me into coming inside the shop, or into telling where I lived, for I don’t think they quite believed that I didn’t know. But the word ‘policeman’ terrified me out of my wits; I suppose I was already half-stupefied with tiredness and crying. If I had dared, I would have rushed out into the street and run off anywhere as fast as I could. But, through all, the feeling never left me that I must stay where I was, and I burst into loud screams.
”‘Oh, papa, papa!’ I cried, ‘why won’t you come back? The police are coming to take me; oh, papa, papa!’
“I was crying so that for a moment or two I didn’t hear a bustle at the other end of the shop. Then, all at once, I saw some one hurrying to me from the door leading into the other street, and as soon as I saw who it was, I rushed to meet him and threw myself into his arms, for of course it was my father. I don’t think, in all my life, I have ever felt greater happiness than I did then.