the person who would
take him to his father at police head-quarters.

CHAPTER III.

MAKING ACQUAINTANCES.

The first day's work at selling newspapers was particularly hard for
Paul Weston, and more than once was it necessary for both Ben and
Johnny to interfere, to save him from what might have been serious
trouble with that class of newsboys who made it their especial
business to drive any new-comer away.

And it would not have been a very long or difficult task to have made
Paul retire from the business if he had not had these two friends, so
experienced in the ways and hard corners of street life.

According to the best judgment of both Ben and Johnny, the only course
which Paul could pursue, with any hope of ever reaching his friends in
Chicago, was to earn sufficient money by the sale of papers to pay his
fare on there. It is true that while Paul had given himself up to
grief on the previous evening, and they had left their hogshead home
in order that he might be alone, a wild idea of writing to some of his
relatives had crossed their minds; but it had not assumed such shape
that they felt warranted in speaking of it to him.

The surest way, they reasoned, to restore him to his home was for him
to earn sufficient money to take him there properly, and to that end
they labored during the first day of his apprenticeship.

They neglected their own work to make it known among their
acquaintances that he was under their immediate care, and that they
should resent to the utmost of their power any effort to drive him
from his task. They also kept a strict watch over him, and whenever
they saw signs of discouragement upon his face, which they did many
times, they encouraged him by kind words and advice to continue in his
labors, holding before him the hope of meeting his parents once more
as the reward of his exertions.

Never once did the thought come to them that by keeping him within
their world they were most effectually hiding him from his parents;
and since they were doing their best to aid him, even if it was the
worst thing they could do, they were none the less friends to him in
the truest sense of the word.

That noon, in order to cheer the sorrowful boy as much as possible,
they resolved on having such a feast as they allowed themselves only
on extra occasions, and that was to go to a cheap restaurant, where a
whole dinner (such as it was) could be bought for fifteen cents. To
them it was a ra