"Ha, ha! I thought I'd find you on the levee sometime," he exclaimed. "All the 'bums' sun themselves here!"
Save that he was a trifle thinner and his round cheek had lost some of its bloom, the boy looked much as he did when Ben parted with him in Harrisburg. The sparkling brown eyes were the same and the ring of his voice had lost none of its silver as he danced around Ben crying:
"Bennie, old boy, I'm awful glad to see you! I am indeed. But how thin you are! Poor Bennie. He'll never make a first-class cadjer, so he won't. And, my eyes! How ragged and dirty! Why don't you rent yourself out for a museum of hard times? I hunted, and hunted, and hunted, for you all along the road, but I must have been ahead of you. I came through on express trains, I did. Sometimes on the roof, sometimes on the pilot, sometimes on the platform, and sometimes inside—until I'd get bounced. I made myself bomb-proof with an old shirt and sixteen newspapers, and I'm thinking they hurt their boots more than they hurt me. Laugh again, Bennie. I like to see you laugh—you've got such pretty teeth. And now you're blushing! Oh, Ben, aint you ashamed! There's no use, I may as well give you up for a bad job; you will never be an ornament to the profession; never make a first-class war-horse. Now tell me all about where you have been, and how you have been, and—and everything!" and Tommy quite out of words and wind, stopped exhausted.
Ben was glad to meet a friendly face in the great strange city, and boy though Tommy was, he felt grateful for his friendship.
"But, Tommy, I have not told you all," said our hero after briefly relating his experience on the tramp. "Do you know that I have seen you since you saw me?"
Tommy looked his surprise and answered:
"No! Where?"
"In Pittsburg," and Ben told him how he had stood and listened to the conversation between Blackoat and Nipper, and how Tommy had appeared and disappeared.
Had Ben been more attentive or observant of his little friend he would have noticed that the hand on his arm trembled, and the boy's cheek paled as he mentioned Blackoat's name. But he did not, and when he looked up, Tommy's face was a burning red, filled with confusion.
"What a gilly you are, Ben!" he said. "You made a mistake in the dark. It was some one else you saw and could not have been me, for I didn't stop in Pittsburg."