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"Well, he better fin' out wen he gets hisself agin er there'll be sompin' comin' to him." "He's done a great deal for me, Sam." "Ummm! Well, you're gettin' it back on him sure thing now, all right. Say, you t' care o' yer'se'f, Mikky! We-all can't do nothin' w'th'ut yer. You lemme know every day how you be." "Sure Sam!" responded Michael deeply touched by the choking sound of Sam's voice.
With rare tact the president questioned the boy, until he made sure there was no inherent rottenness in him: and then gently and kindly, but firmly laid down the law and explained why it was right and necessary that there should be a law. He spoke of the purity of God. Mikky knew nothing of God and listened with quiet interest.
It could have seemed no worse to them if the far heaven above the narrow city streets had opened its grim clouds and received their comrade from their sight. They were appalled. How could he ever be theirs again? How could it all have happened in the few short hours since Mikky flashed past them and fell a martyr to his kindly heart and saved the wicked rich man his child?
She called out some rough, ribaldry to the woman who glanced up fiercely and deigned no further reply. Then Michael tried again. "Could you tell me of the boys who used to go with Mikky?" "No, Oi can't," she answered crossly, "Oi can't be bothered. Oi don't know who they was." "There was Jimmie and Sam and Bobs and Buck. Surely you remember Buck, and little Janie.
Mikky the newsboy could tell like a flash how much change he needed to return to the fat gentleman who occasionally gave him a five-dollar bill to change on Broadway; but Mikky the scholar, though he knew figures, and was able to study out with labor easy words in his papers, had never heard of adding up figures in the way they did here, long rows of them on the blackboard.
"Annyhow, he wanted us!" spoke up a curly-headed boy with old eyes and a thin face. He was one whom Mikky had been won't to defend. He bore a hump upon his ragged back. "Aw! he's all right fer us, is Mik," said Buck, "but he's different nor us. Old Aunt Sal she said one day he were named fer a 'n'angel, an' like as not he'll go back where he b'longs some day, but he won't never fergit us.
Once you gave me a drink of soup from your kettle. Think!" A dim perception came into the sodden eyes. "Thur wus a Mikky long ago," she mused. "He had hair like a h'angel, bless the sweet chile; but he got shot an' never come back. That war long ago." Michael took off his hat and the little light in the dark alley seemed to catch and tangle in the gleam of his hair.
He sent a pot of roses with buds and full bloom to perfume the dark cell, and he promised to write often; while Buck on his part could only say over and over; "Oh, Mikky! Mikky! Ef we wos oney kids agin! Oh, Mikky, I'll git out o' here yit an' find ye. Ye'll not be ashamed o' me. Ef I oney hadn't a bungled de job. It were a bum job! Mikky! A bum job!"
The grip of that firm, strong hand, the touch of brotherhood, a touch such as had never come to his life before since he was a little child, completed the work that the smile had begun, and Sam knew that Mikky, the real Mikky was before him.
You might need one yourself some day, you know. What's your name, boy? Who shall I tell Mikky sent the message?" "Buck," said the child gravely, "Fightin' Buck, they calls me." "Very appropriate name, I should think," said the doctor smiling. "Well, run along Buck and be here at five o'clock." Reluctantly the boy moved off.
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