ogether some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's
one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he
don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to
be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say
so."

Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion
across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.

"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father
died. When his business was settled up--he kept a little grocery store
on Hanover Street--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had
lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been
to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got
her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes
her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She
got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be
for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; _I_ can do something for
_myself_. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll
go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of
myself.'"

"What could _you_ do?" said the little old man.

"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I
should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do
light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But
beggars mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I
wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling
newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve
years old next month."

"You like it?" said the old man.

"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want
is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make
a home for--But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of
things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it
taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they
have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change."

The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help
himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his
soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and
more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded.

"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie?
Don't be afraid: I'll