ked Ben, with interest.

"Sixty cents."

"Sixty cents, and it isn't more than ten o'clock. That's doing pretty
well."

"'Taint so good in the afternoon. Most every body gets their boots
blacked in the mornin'. What are you goin' to do?"

"I don't know," said Ben.

"Goin' to black boots? I'll show you how," said the other, generously
overlooking all considerations of possible rivalry.

"I don't think I should like that very well," said Ben, slowly.

Having been brought up in a comfortable home, he had a prejudice in
favor of clean hands and unsoiled clothes,--a prejudice of which his
street life speedily cured him.

"I think I should rather sell papers, or go into a store," said Ben.

"You can't make so much money sellin' papers," said his new
acquaintance. "Then you might get 'stuck'".

"What's that?" inquired Ben, innocently.

"Don't you know?" asked the boot-black, wonderingly. "Why, it's when
you've got more papers than you can sell. That's what takes off the
profits. I was a newsboy once; but it's too hard work for the money.
There aint no chance of gettin' stuck on my business."

"It's rather a dirty business," said Ben, venturing to state his main
objection, at the risk of offending. But Jerry Collins, for that was his
name, was not very sensitive on this score.

"What's the odds?" he said, indifferently. "A feller gets used to it."

Ben looked at Jerry's begrimed hands, and clothes liberally marked with
spots of blacking, and he felt that he was not quite ready to get used
to appearing in public in this way. He was yet young in his street life.
The time came when he ceased to be so particular.

"Where do you board?" asked Ben, after a little pause.

Jerry Collins stared at the questioner as if he suspected that a joke
was intended. But Ben's serious face assured him that he was in earnest.

"You're jolly green," he remarked, sententiously.

"Look here," said Ben, with spirit, "I'll give you a licking if you say
that again."

It may be considered rather singular that Jerry, Instead of resenting
this threat, was led by it to regard Ben with favor.

"I didn't mean anything," he said, by way of apology. "You're a trump,
and you'll get over it when you've been in the city a week."

"What made you call me green?" asked Ben.

"Did you think I boarded up to the Fifth Avenue?" asked Jerry.

"What's that,--a hotel?"

"Yes, it's one of the big hotels, where they eat off gold plates."

"No, I d