"Yes, I am," answered Walter.
"Are you entirely alone, or do your parents expect you there?" the man continued.
"I am entirely alone!" sighed the boy.
"And do you think it possible, you little fool, to get on by yourself? Have you a passport and a certificate from your home?" "No! I have neither. I did not know I should need them," answered Walter.
"I thought so! You are already in a scrape, then. There are officers appointed by the government, whose duty it is to see that all strangers possess such papers; they exact them from everybody, little and big, and those who have them not are immediately taken up, and either put in prison, or sent out of the country as nuisances and vagabonds."
"O, I am not at all afraid of that!" said Walter. "I know a good gentleman in the town, who would certainly help me."
"Oh!" growled the man, "if you have an acquaintance in the town, that is quite another thing! Rosa! Rosa! don't be running about so in every direction! You'll tire yourself out before you come to the town, and then you'll not be fit to do anything. Come to me, and I'll carry you a little!"
He raised the little girl in his arms, and swung her upon his back. The child, accustomed to this manner of being carried, fastened her arms and feet around him, and from her new position commenced teasing and tormenting her sister, in no very refined manner.
Walter began to dislike his companions, and to feel rather uncomfortable with them, so he tried to walk faster than they were doing so as to leave them behind, but the man hastened his steps, and insisted upon keeping up with him. After a short time he said to him: "Now, tell us, boy, what is the name of your acquaintance? If he is rich and kind, he will probably give me, who am very poor indeed, something worth looking at, if I make my children perform for him. Where does he live?"
"His name is—is—I cannot think now of his name! Wait a minute! O yes! He said I must ask for the house of—of—of—the clock-maker. Now, what was the name? Merciful Heaven! Can I have forgotten his name? I will certainly recall it in a moment or two."