d Jack, with an interest that quite amused me.

"One would think that after giving you smallpox, and robbing you of your
money, you were really under an obligation to the young beggar, and
wanted to thank him personally. If you are so very anxious to pay your
respects, it's ten to one we shall run across him at the top of Style
Street--that's where his place of business is."

"Place of business? What do you mean?"

"I mean that he has spent the money he stole from us in buying a
shoeblack's apparatus, and seems to think it's something to be proud of,
too," I replied.

Jack laughed. "He might have done worse. My boots want blacking, Fred;
let's go round by Style Street."

The young vagabond was there, engaged, as we approached him, in walking
round and round his box on the palms of his hands with his feet in the
air.

At the sight of us he dropped suddenly into a human posture, and, with a
very broad grin on his face, said, "Shine 'e boots, governor? Why, if
it ain't t'other flat come back? Shine 'e boots?"

"Yes; I want my boots cleaned," said Jack, solemnly, planting one foot
on the box.

The boy dropped briskly on his knees and went to work, making Jack's
boot shine as it had never shone before. In the middle of the operation
he stopped short, and, looking up, said, "You _was_ a flat that there
night, you was!"

I could only laugh at this frank piece of information.

"I think you were the flat!" said Jack, putting up his other foot on the
box.

"Me? _I_ ain't no flat, no error!" replied the boy, with a grin. "I'm
a sharp 'un, that's what I are!"

"I think you were worse than a flat to steal my money, and my friend's."

The boy looked perplexed. "Ga on!" said he.

"What's your name?" asked Jack, changing the subject.

"Billy," replied the boy.

"Billy what?"

"Ga on! What do you mean by `what'? Ain't Billy enough?"

"Where do you live?"

"Live? where I can; that's where I live!"

"Then you don't live with your mother in that court any longer?"

"The old gal--she ain't no concern of yourn!" said the youth, firing up.

"I know that," said Jack, evidently at a loss, as I had been, how to
pursue the conversation with this queer boy. "I say, Billy," he added,
"where are you going to sleep to-night?"

"Ain't a-goin' to sleep nowheres!" was the prompt reply.

"Would you like to come and sleep with me?"

"No fear!" was the complimentary reply.

"What are you going to do, then?"