“I don't know,” murmured Lemuel.
“Got no friends in town you can go to?”
“No.”
“Well, now, look here! Do you think you could find your way back to the station?”
“I guess so,” said Lemuel, looking up at the officer questioningly.
“Well, when you get tired of this, you come round, and we'll provide a bed for you. And you get back home to-morrow, quick as you can.”
“Thank you,” said Lemuel. He was helpless against the advice and its unjust implication, but he could not say anything.
“Get out o' Boston, anyway, wherever you go or don't go,” continued the officer. “It's a bad place.”
He walked on, and left Lemuel to himself again. He thought bitterly that no one knew better than himself how luridly wicked Boston was, and that there was probably not a soul in it more helplessly anxious to get out of it. He thought it hard to be talked to as if it were his fault; as if he wished to become a vagrant and a beggar. He sat there an hour or two longer, and then he took the officer's advice so far as concerned his going to the station for a bed, swallowing his pride as he must. He must do that, or he must go to Mr. Sewell. It was easier to accept humiliation at the hands of strangers. He found his way there with some difficulty, and slinking in at the front door, he waited at the threshold of the captain's room while he and two or three officers disposed of a respectably dressed man, whom a policeman was holding up by the collar of his coat. They were searching his pockets and taking away his money, his keys, and his pencil and penknife, which the captain sealed up in a large envelope, and put into his desk.
“There! take him and lock him up. He's pretty well loaded,” said the captain.