his face which betrayed him.

"Put back them pies, you young thafe!" said the angry pie-merchant.
"Aint you ashamed of yerself to rob a poor widdy, that has hard work to
support herself and her childers,--you that's dressed like a gentleman,
and ought to know better?"

"Give it to him, old lady," said the hard-hearted young vagabond, who
had exposed Ben's iniquity.

As for Ben, he had not a word to say. In spite of his hunger, he was
overwhelmed with confusion at having actually attempted to steal, and
been caught in the act. He was by no means a model boy; but apart from
anything which he had been taught in the Sunday school, he considered
stealing mean and discreditable, and yet he had been led into it. What
would his friends at home think of it, if they should ever hear of it?
So, as I said, he stood without a word to say in his defence,
mechanically replacing the pies on the stall.

"I say, old lady, you'd orter give me a pie for tellin' you," said the
informer.

"You'd have done the same, you young imp, if you'd had the chance,"
answered the pie-vender, with more truth than gratitude. "Clear out, the
whole on ye. I've had trouble enough with ye."

Ben moved off, thankful to get off so well. He had feared that he might
be handed over to the police, and this would have been the crowning
disgrace.

But the old woman seemed satisfied with the restoration of her property,
and the expression of her indignation. The attempt upon her stock she
regarded with very little surprise, having suffered more than once
before in a similar way.

But there was another spectator of the scene, whose attention had been
drawn to the neat attire and respectable appearance of Ben. He saw that
he differed considerably from the ordinary run of street boys. He
noticed also the flush on the boy's cheek when he was detected, and
judged that this was his first offence. Something out of the common way
must have driven him to the act. He felt impelled to follow Ben, and
learn what that something was. I may as well state here that he was a
young man of twenty-five or thereabouts, a reporter on one or more of
the great morning papers. He, like Ben, had come to the city in search
of employment, and before he secured it had suffered more hardships and
privations than he liked to remember. He was now earning a modest
income, sufficient to provide for his wants, and leave a surplus over.
He had seen much of suffering and much of crime in his d