Following the example of the others, I cuddled up in a corner, and tried to forget my troubles in sleep. Just dozing, preliminary to falling into sounder sleep, I was suddenly and swiftly aroused by a grasp and a kick, and informed that I had usurped a corner "beeslonging" to a habitué of this dismal hostelry.
I had yet to learn that a newsboy will claim everything in sight, to relinquish it only by defeat in fight, and meekly submitted to my dispossession. The late comer took a bundle of newspapers from under his arm and carefully proceeded to prepare his bed. First, he spread a number of sheets on the floor; then built a pillow from the major part, and, at last, proceeded to cover himself with the remaining papers.
The light was dim, still, it was enough to show him my discomfiture.
"Say," he addressed me, "what's the matter, ain't you got no place to sleep? I'll tell you what I'll do. If you don't kick in your sleep, I'll let you lie down longside o' me." Then, as an afterthought, "It'll keep me warmer, anyhow."
Most emphatically and impressively did I assure him that my sleep was absolutely motionless, and from that night dated a partnership and friendship which lasted for many years.
In later years I have often wondered why I and all the other boys who comprised the newspaper-selling fraternity of that day always landed in Park Row, and in the midst of the future colleagues? It seemed to be a well defined destiny. Behind the coming of each new recruit was the little tragedy, which had made the leading actor therein a stray waif of the streets. And, no matter where the tragedy had happened, whether in Harlem or in the First Ward, the district along and above the Battery, they all found their way to Park Row.
The life of the newsboy is full of action. His personal struggle and business is so absorbing that he has no time for useless speculation. The advent of a newcomer is not signalized by a very warm reception. He is neither hampered by professional jealousy or suffered by tolerance. The field is open to all, and it rests with the boy how he will fare. However, in spite of this almost essential selfishness, impulsive outbursts of good nature are a characteristic of this most emotional creature, the newsboy. My apprenticeship in the fraternity owed its beginning to one of these spontaneous outbursts.
It was quite early when, chilled to the marrow, I awoke in the drafty hallway. My new and independent existence was begun with my first great sorrow. Here the temptation is very strong upon me to tell you that remorse, anguish and despair were racking my soul; that it was homesickness or a great longing for all I had left behind me. But putting this temptation behind me, I must confess that my sorrow was of the most material kind. I missed my coffee.
Across the street was Hitchcock's coffee and cake saloon. Through the shivery morning air, every time a patron entered or left the place, a cloud of greasy, spicy aromas came wafting to the frozen little troupe leaving their dreary abiding place. My future colleagues had so often had this torture inflicted on them that, now, with just an envious sniff, they could bear it with stoical fortitude. I, still a weakling, stopped, as if transfixed, inhaled the perfumed currents and most solemnly swore that, with my very first money, I would buy the entire stock; yes, even the entire coffee and cake saloon.
Alas, Hitchcock's is still doing business.