“How was that?”
“Oh, I picked him up on the street in New York. I saw that he had a good voice and was a bright kid, so I took him for my partner.”
“But tell me how it came about.”
She was quite willing to do so. And the rumbling of the wheels, the rush of the train over the night-swathed plains of New Jersey, accompanied her voice. All the other passengers were sleeping. To the following effect was her narrative:
At evening a crowd of boys had gathered at the corner of Broadway and a down-town street. One of them—ragged, unkempt, but handsome—was singing and dancing for the diversion of the others. That way came the variety actress, then out of an engagement. She stopped, heard the boy sing, and saw him dance. She pushed through the crowd to him.
“How did you learn to dance?” she asked.
“Didn't ever learn,” he said, with impudent sullenness.
“Who taught you to sing?”
“None o' yer business.”
“But who did teach you?”