m a telegraph boy."

"How much do you make?"

"Seven dollars last week."

"Why, you will be rich," said the blind man, enviously. "I don't think I
get as much as that myself, and I have to pay a boy out of it."

His poor guide did not have the appearance of being very liberally paid.

"Then you won't come back?" said Mills, querulously.

"No, I guess not."

"Come along, boy!" said Mills, roughly, to his little guide. "Are you
going to keep me here all day?"

"I thought you wanted to speak to this boy."

"Well, I have got through. He has deserted me. It is the way of the
world. There's nobody to pity the poor, blind man."

"Here's five cents for old acquaintance' sake. Mr. Mills," said Frank,
dropping a nickel into the hand of the boy who was guiding him.

"Thank you! May you never know what it is to be blind!" said Mills, in
his professional tone.

"If I am, I hope I can see as well as you," thought Frank. "What a
precious old humbug he is, and how I pity that poor boy! If I had a
chance I would give him something to save him from starvation."

Frank walked on, quite elated at the change in his circumstances which
allowed him to give money in charity to the person who had once been his
employer. He would have given it more cheerfully if in his estimation
the man had been more worthy.

Frank's errand took him up Broadway. He had two or three stops to make,
which made it inconvenient for him to ride. A little way in front of him
he saw a boy of fourteen, whom he recognized as an errand-boy, and a
former fellow-lodger at the Newsboy's Lodging-House. He was about to
hurry forward and join John Riley,--for this was the boy's name,--when
his attention was attracted, and his suspicions aroused, by a man who
accosted John. He was a man of about thirty, rather showily dressed,
with a gold chain dangling from his vest.

"Johnny," he said, addressing the errand-boy "do you want to earn ten
cents?"

"I should like to," answered the boy, "but I am going on an errand, and
can't spare the time."

"It won't take five minutes," said the young man. "It is only to take
this note up to Mr. Conant's room, on the fourth floor of this
building."

They were standing in front of a high building occupied as offices.

The boy hesitated.

"Is there an answer?" he asked.

"No; you can come right down as soon as the letter is delivered."

"I suppose I could spare the time for that," said John Riley.

"Of course you can.