was, he tossed his head and answered loftily,
"Don't do fer girls to go trav'lin' round 'ithout cash. You ain't
workin' to-day an'--an' ye may need it. Newspaper men--well, we can
scrape along 'most anyhow. Hello, here's Buttons!"

A cheery whistle announced the arrival of the third member of this
intimate trio, and presently Billy came in sight around the Elbow, his
freckled face as gay as the morning despite the facts that he still
carried some unsold papers under his arm and that he had just emerged
from a street fight, rather the worse for that event.

Glory's fastidiousness was shocked, and, forgetting her own trouble in
disgust at his carelessness, she exclaimed, "You bad Billy Buttons!
There you've gone lost two more your buttons what I sewed with my
strongest thread this very last day ever was! An' your jacket----What
you been doin' with yourself, Billy Buttons?"

The newcomer seated himself between his friends, though in so doing he
crowded Nick from the door-sill to the sidewalk, and composedly helped
himself to what was left of their scanty breakfast. Better than nothing
he found it and answered, as he ate, Glory's repeated inquiry, "What
doin'? Why, scrappin', 'course. Say, parson, you hear me? They's a new
feller come on our beat an' you chuck him, soon's ye see him. I jest
punched him to beat, but owe him 'nother, 'long o' this tear. Sew it,
Take-a-Stitch?"

"Can't, Billy. I've got to hunt grandpa. Oh, Billy, Billy, he hain't
never come home!"

The newsboy paused in the munching of a crust and whistled, but this
time in dismay rather than good cheer. Then he demanded, "What ye givin'
us?"

The others explained, both talking at once, though Master Buttons soon
silenced his partner in trade that he might better hear the girl's own
story. When she had finished, and now with a fresh burst of tears, he
whistled again; then ordered:

"Quit snivelin', Glory Beck! A man ain't dead till he dies, is he?
More'n likely 'twas the old cap'n got hurt but that ain't nothin'. Why,
them hospitals is all chuck full o' smash-up folks, an' it's jest meat
fer them doctor-fellers to mend 'em again. He ain't dead, an' don't you
believe it; but dead or alive we'll find him 'fore dark.

"Fer onct," continued Billy, "the parson's showed some sense. He might's
well do the 'Harbor,' 'cause that's only one place an' he can't blunder
much--seems if. You take the streets, same's he said; and I--if you'll
put a needle an' thread