His innocent heart ran over, and he told his new friend, the lady, all she asked him about his sick father, his tired mother, the little tenement that was like the kettle that all boiled away, and the big family that crammed it so full when gathered together. But one thing neither the lady, nor her husband, who filled Bonny's pocket with pennies, nor the host, could succeed in finding out from him.
This was where the little fellow belonged, and how to return him to his home.
Street and number he knew naught about. What was his name? "Bonny Laddie." His father's name? "Oh, John." What kind of work did his father do? "Oh, nothing; father is sick." He had no clear ideas associated with any calling except with Nickie's, as they found by questioning.
That Nickie peddled papers, and that Bonny would when he was bigger, he was very positive about.
"Well, then," suggested the host, "we'll try the newsboys. We'll just have Laddie standing by the door when they go past, and maybe he can pick out this brother of his from the lot."
The company sat for a long time round the tables. Bonny kept still, listening and wondering, though he understood little of the speeches and the toasts. Once all eyes were again turned toward Bonny.
A gentleman rose and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose the health of the first guest of the Metropolis Hotel, who, though uninvited, has given the patriarch of this palace the privilege of entertaining an angel unawares."
But Bonny answered nothing to the looks bent upon him. With one hand full of nuts and bonbons, the other in his heavy pocket, and a face of perfect peace, the little guest of the Metropolis Hotel lay fast asleep in his chair.
He was rosily awake again by the time the newsboys were crying their evening papers.
"Come and watch for Nickie," coaxed the host; and with Bonny's small, warm hand in his own he stepped out on the broad granite slab in front of the hotel.