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Farther away some ragged children were dancing to the music of a hand-organ, which ground out a melancholy waltz; and from a tiny flower stall behind the stand of a bootblack there drifted the intense sweetness of hyacinths.
It was just daybreak, and between that Dutch cattle salesman and the barkeeper and myself, it would have taken a bookkeeper to have kept a check on the drinks we consumed every one the last. "Then the Dutchman gave me the slip and was gone, and I wandered into the office of the hotel. A newsboy sold me a paper, and the next minute a bootblack wanted to give me a shine.
After that we had everything of note, the bootblack boy, the toper with bottle, the woolly rabbit that squeaks when you hold it in your mouth; they all vanished as inexplicably as the lady, but I dared not tell him my suspicions, for he suspected also and his gentle heart would have mourned had I confirmed his fears.
"What kind of business?" "Well," said Tom reflectively, "you might buy out an apple or a peanut-stand, and have lots of money left." "Is there much money to be made that way?" inquired Ben. "Well, I never knowed anybody get rich in that line. I guess you'd make a livin'." "That wouldn't satisfy me, Tom. What I want most of all is to go to California." The bootblack whistled.
"Military pickets should not differ from other pickets" said the bootblack modestly. "To stand firmly they should be well driven in." "Ha! there is something in that," said the general thoughtfully. "But who are you, who speak thus?" Rising to his full height, the bootblack threw off his outer rags, and revealed the figure of the Boy Chief of the Pigeon Feet. "Treason!" shrieked the general.
By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. A bright, enterprising lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad.
"He was not a bootblack then," retorted Hector, "nor would he be now but for your mean spite. Mr. Roscoe, as I happen to know, my father always valued the services of Reuben Deane, and I ask, in his name, that you give him back his place."
It was certainly remarkable that the boy to whom he had recently offered the position of his bootblack should be a guest of a fashionable New York hotel. Mr. Campbell had no particular reason to think that Miss Ida Sinclair, registering from Philadelphia, was the ward of whom he was in pursuit.
O'Keefe," objected Mattie. "And what if it is? Can't you bite out the specks? The rest of the apple is good. You're gettin' mighty particular." Mattie bit a piece out of the sound part of the apple, and, when Mrs. O'Keefe was at a safe distance, gave the rest to a lame bootblack, and picked out one of the best apples for her own eating.
Suddenly the howling was hushed and merged into shouts of acclaim. "Good boy, Kid! Here he comes," and, rising with the others, I saw coming down the aisle from the dressing-rooms "Kid" Spatola, the bootblack champion.
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