"Wot's five cents when jest as likely as not she had as much as five dollars in her pocket?" said Johnny Davis, the newsboy, who was sometimes spoken of, and to, by his proper name, but more often as "Water-melon Davis," because of his enormous appetite for the watery fruit.
Johnny spoke almost contemptuously of that which Katy Morrison, the "black-pin girl," considered a piece of good fortune, and if he did not actually turn his nose up in disdain, it was because nature had already so elevated that rather prominent feature of his face that it was impossible for him to get it any higher.
"Well"—and Jimmy Green, Johnny's partner in business, as well as particular friend of Katy's, spoke very slowly, as was customary with him—"five cents ain't to be sneezed at when a feller's only expectin' to get one, an' if Katy could get enough of 'em she'd make three, four dollars a day."
"How I wish I could!" said Katy, enviously, as with her stock of pins in her lap she sat on the door-step of an unoccupied store, her chin resting on one hand as she rattled the pennies in her pocket with the other. "If I could make that much, I'd buy me a whole dress, an' real shoes without any holes in 'em, an'—an'—an' I'd buy a pair of bracelets, that's what I'd do."
"Bracelets!" sneered Johnny, as he folded the paper that was undoubtedly fated to remain on his hands as stale goods from his morning's stock. "It makes me feel almost like gettin' mad, Katy, to hear you talk about buyin' bracelets, when you can get a pair of boxin'-gloves down to Levy's for as much as you'd pay for bracelets."
"Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Jimmy, as he rubbed his chin reflectively. "P'r'aps they'd do her more good than the gloves would, 'cause, you see, Katy don't know nothin' 'bout boxin'."
"Then she oughter learn," was the very decided response from Master Davis. "Girls could box as well as fellers if they'd get somebody to show 'em how."
"But I don't want to learn, an' I do want the bracelets," said Katy, thinking that possibly she had the right to say how this prospective money of hers should be spent. "That's all you boys think about, how you can hurt each other, an' you don't care what you wear nor how you look. I'd like to wear dresses that wasn't all torn, an' I'd like to look the way girls do what have mothers, an' don't have to live in such a old house as we do, an' pay 'most all our money for what Mother Brown calls board an' lodgin'. Then when I want bracelets, you tell me to get boxin'-gloves."
"Well, if you don't want 'em, don't get 'em," said Johnny, philosophically, and looking much as if he fully understood how difficult it is to persuade girls as to just what they really need. "Buy the bracelets, an' then you'll look fine, won't you? sellin' pins fur a cent a paper with a big pair of gold bracelets slippin' down over yer hands every time you try to shy a stick at a dog."
"I never throwed a stick at a dog in my life," said Katy, indignantly; and then she added, quickly, "'cept once, when Dutch Pete cheated me outer two herrin's, an' I hit his dog to get even with him."