What a blissful invitation for George! They tumbled up stairs in their delightful hurry, ran through the door into the broad hall, to the elevator, and the moment it appeared, Charley cried out,
"Oh, Mike, open the door; George wants to ride up and down with me; he's my friend."
"Oh, he's your friend, is he?" said Mike, puckering up his eyes at George Washington; "and a very pretty color he is, too. Well, step in, Snowball."
"His name isn't Snowball; it's George Washington," said Charley.
The elevator man laughed, and the two boys got closer together in a corner, pretending that it was a balloon, and they were sailing up and down in the air; and there they sat, in a state of perfect happiness.
The two boys never quarrelled. George had a sweet disposition, and was ready to do anything Charley proposed. They loved each other dearly, and many were the slices of bread and butter, spread thickly over with molasses, to which the two friends were treated by the good-natured washer-woman. They never sat down to eat them; oh no! they capered, and danced, and burst out laughing when they tumbled over a broomstick or a bench, and seemed to grow rosier and fatter every day. That is, Charley grew rosier, and George's smooth black skin grew shinier, which was the same thing—for him.
The little black boy was often permitted by his mother to go out toward Fourth Avenue, and run over one of the high arched bridges which covers the Fourth Avenue Railroad, and he did not think he was doing wrong when one day he asked Charley to go too.
"Oh yes, I will," he cried, in a great state of delight.
As soon as they arrived at the bridge, they began chasing each other over it; and then Charley said:
"Oh, George, let's play that we are travellers, hunting for a whale. I heard my mamma talking about one that was on ex-ex-exedition down by the river. She said that it was 'most a mile long."