of people began to thin out, he followed a
fat man with a big basket to the door and up the steps out into the
street.

It was still light enough to see clearly, and Sunny Boy knew that he
had never been in this part of New York. There were many small shops
on either side of the street and moving picture places with great
glaring signs already lit.

"Papers!" a boy on the corner was calling. "Papers!"

As Sunny watched him, several men stepped up and bought papers and ran
down the subway steps.

Sunny felt in his pocket. There were two bright pennies there, slipped
in by Mother, who always put money in the pocket of each new suit.
Sunny jammed his hat more tightly on his yellow head and walked over
to where the newsboy stood.

"Want a paper?" the boy grinned at him in a friendly way. "_World?_
Well, didn't your father say? How much you got?"

Sunny Boy held out his pennies silently.

The boy whipped a paper from the pack under his arm, folded it neatly
and gave it to Sunny, taking his money as he did so.

"You'd better scoot," he advised him kindly. "If your father's waiting
for that paper he'll think you're reading it. Hurry up--get a move
on!"

Sunny Boy sat down sociably on an old soap box.

"Daddy isn't waiting," he said.

"Papers! Here you are, sir!" the boy made change quickly with not too
clean hands. "Then what do you want a paper for? You can't read, can
you?"

"Well some writing I can," admitted Sunny Boy modestly. "That is, if
it's printed. I thought maybe you'd talk to me."

"Talk to you!" repeated the newsboy. "Say, kid, you ought to be home
running errands for supper."

Sunny Boy doubled a small foot under him.

"I got lost," he announced casually.

[Illustration: "Sunny Boy sat down sociably on an old soap box"]

"In the subway. They pushed me and then I thought I saw mother and it
was another lady."

The boy glanced at him sharply.

"You stringing me?" he demanded. "You do look as if you were used to
having somebody around with you. Don't you know where you live?"

"Of course I do," declared Sunny Boy quickly. "I always 'member where
I live. It's the Macnapin Hotel."

The newsboy had sold nearly all his papers now and he felt that he
could take a little time to question this strange child who sat on the
soap box and said he was lost.

"That's a new one to me," he admitted, when Sunny Boy mentioned the
hotel. "Is it in New York?"

"My, yes!" Sunny Boy answered, surprised.