"It's all right, I s'pose," he remarked, "but it's too funny for me. You're the first man I ever met that wouldn't tell whatever suited him to get along easy. Why, look-a-here; you go up and tell that gate keeper you're bust, and want to go over. He'll laugh at you. Look on you with contempt. Go tell him you live in Newark, and have just had your pocket picked. He'll respect you, and treat you civilly, whether he believes you or not; ten to one he'll let you over. Lemme tell you somethin' as may be useful to you on your way. There's no premiums for truth, but there's an everlasting lot of chromos goes with good lies. Now if it's agin your conscience to gin the gate keeper a racket, the only other way I know for you to get over is to go up the street a piece and jump a wagon. Gin the driver a good talk, and get him to take you. So long, my friend. I wish you luck. The band's about to play over in the Bowery, an' if I aint on hand in time, some unprincipled vagabond will have my dress-circle seat with a lamppost back. So long!" And shaking Ben by the hand, the shoemaker turned and disappeared up a neighboring thoroughfare.
Ignoring the professional's moral advice, our friend proceeded a short distance from the ferry, and meeting a jovial, round-faced Hibernian, driving a dray, told his desire to go over, and the impecunious position in which he was placed. The driver kindly gave him a lift, and the gate was safely passed. On the ferry, Ben answered the driver's numerous inquiries as explicitly as he thought proper, and quite an acquaintance was struck between them. When the boat had deposited them on the Jersey City side he dismounted, and after thanking the driver was about proceeding on his way, when the latter thrust out a dirty, toil soiled hand, and forced a quarter of a dollar on him. "It aint much, but it'll help yez get a mouthful to eat," and without waiting either protestations or thanks, the man put whip to his team and drove off.
CHAPTER IV.
OUR HERO MEETS HIS DESTINY.
"Well, it is charity," said Ben to himself, "but it is acceptable for all that." He then strolled up the gaslit street,—for it had been dark for some little time—and repeatedly asked himself what would be the next move in the campaign he had undertaken.
The "prodigal" had spoken of riding; how was it to be done? Should he enter a train, take a seat and wait until the conductor put him off? He knew that that manner of proceeding would gain him but a short ride. Perhaps he might tell the conductor a pathetic tale that would so work upon that individual's generosity that he would allow him to continue on the train. Alas, he knew the craft too well to attempt so futile an undertaking. Not that conductors are a hard-hearted class of persons, but their orders are strict, and permitting a free ride would subject them to a peremptory discharge. In fact Ben was lost. At a distance the simple matter of going from place to place looked easy enough of accomplishment, but now that he was brought face to face with the problem its solution became a difficult (indeed he was about thinking an impossible) task. What to do or where to go he knew not. For a time he gazed listlessly into the shop windows, and mechanically strolled along. If he could only meet a tramp, he thought, he would ask him how to proceed; and he kept a sharp lookout for one of the fraternity, but none presented themselves. It soon grew late, and the streets lonely. The pedestrians became fewer and fewer, and the shops, one by one, put up their shutters. Ben thought he had never felt so lonesome in all his life; and he was right. There is no situation in life more lonely, than to be alone in a great city at night fall. In the woods a man has Nature to listen to and commune with. On the prairies there are the stars and the night breeze for companions. But in a metropolis, a stranger among our fellow men, such a wretched, helpless feeling comes over the traveller that his loneliness seats itself, not only on his mind, but on his heart. This feeling was creeping with a dull, heavy tread upon Ben, and he had already commenced to anxiously question himself where he should pass the night that was now surrounding him, when his attention was suddenly aroused by a youthful voice, in a dark side street, close by, crying out:
"Let me alone! Let me alone, I say!" and then a gentle female voice entreating:
"Do not strike the boy, Arthur. Do not beat him. He did not mean to; I am sure he did not!"
"I'll teach you to pick a pocket, you young scoundrel!" exclaimed an angry man; and there followed a blow, and a cry of pain.
By this time Ben, who had accelerated his step, reached the scene of disturbance, and discovered by the dim light that crept from a street lamp, half a block away, a large man grasping a boy by the arm, and holding an uplifted cane, that a young lady was striving to prevent again descending upon the captive. The face of the latter being concealed by an old slouch hat jammed down over his eyes.