"I've asked everybody, and it's no use," was the weary answer.
"Well it's no use here either, Mike; if I get any I'll want it myself."
Mike listlessly wandered on a few steps farther up the dingy road, and then collapsed, a mere bundle of rags, under the shadow of a doorway.
"You'll not get much of a supper sitting there," commented Patch, setting off himself in quest of a more appreciative audience.
At the corner of the next street was a big hospital, and Patch betook himself thither. He had received stray coppers occasionally from the visitors who came and went through the ponderous iron gates, and what had been once might be again. Fortune was going to favour him at last, he thought, for coming down the steps was a gentle-faced old lady in a curiously-shaped bonnet and grey gown. Patch realised that it was a case of "whistling for it" now, and no mistake; so he put on his most dejected expression and piped out "The Last Rose of Summer" with truly startling emphasis.
Unhappily there chanced to be a shaggy-haired dog waiting outside the gate whose taste for music had evidently not been cultivated. At the very first notes he raised his head with a long howl of disgust that spoilt the effect entirely. It was trying, for Patch saw his prospects vanishing into thin air unless his rival could be promptly silenced; so slipping cautiously behind, he dealt the animal as vigorous a kick as the dilapidated state of his shoe would permit.
"Oh, thee should not have done that! the poor creature meant no harm," cried the lady reproachfully, hastening down the steps to console the sufferer; and Patch discovered, with confusion, that the dog belonged to her. Truly it had been an unfortunate day.
"He looked like a poor dog; I didn't know it was yours," he stammered out. "It's the first chance I've had to-day, and he was spoiling the music."
The old lady looked gravely down at his pinched face and ragged figure.
"Thee looks ill."