“I don’t like it at all,” said Bobby Frog to his friend Tim Lumpy, that evening in the sleeping car of the railway train that bore them onward to Montreal; “they’ll soon be partin’ you an’ me, an’ that’ll be worse than wallerin’ in the mud of Vitechapel.”
Bobby said this with such an expression of serious anxiety that his little friend was quite touched.
“I hope not, Bob,” he replied. “What d’ee say to axin’ our Guardian to put us both into the same sitivation?”
Bobby thought that this was not a bad idea, and as they rolled along these two little waifs gravely discussed their future prospects. It was the same with many others of the band, though not a few were content to gaze out of the carriage windows, pass a running commentary on the new country, and leave their future entirely to their Guardian. Soon, however, the busy little tongues and brains ceased to work, and ere long were steeped in slumber.
At midnight the train stopped, and great was the sighing and groaning, and earnest were the requests to be let alone, for a batch of the boys had to be dropped at a town by the way. At last they were aroused, and with their bags on their shoulders prepared to set off under a guide to their various homes. Soon the sleepiness wore off, and, when the train was about to start, the reality of the parting seemed to strike home, and the final handshakings and good wishes were earnest and hearty.
Thus, little by little, the band grew less and less.
Montreal swallowed up a good many. While there the whole band went out for a walk on the heights above the reservoir with their Guardian, guided by a young Scotsman.
“That’s a jolly-lookin’ ’ouse, Tim,” said Bob Frog to his friend.
The Scotsman overheard the remark.
“Yes,” said he, “it is a nice house, and a good jolly man owns it. He began life as a poor boy. And do you see that other villa—the white one with the green veranda among the trees? That was built by a man who came out from England just as you have done, only without anybody to take care of him; God however cared for him, and now you see his house. He began life without a penny, but he had three qualities which will make a man of any boy, no matter what circumstances he may be placed in. He was truthful, thorough, and trustworthy. Men knew that they might believe what he said, be sure of the quality of what he did, and could rely upon his promises. There was another thing much in his favour, he was a total abstainer. Drink in this country ruins hundreds of men and women, just as in England. Shun drink, boys, as you would a serpent.”