signated and charged for as a
bed.

From that day forward Wikkey was possessed by one idea--that of watching
for the approach of the "big chap," following his steps along the
crossing, and then, if possible, getting a word or look on which to live
until the next blissful moment should arrive. Nor was he often
disappointed, for Lawrence, having recently obtained employment in a
certain government office, and Wikkey's crossing happening to lie on
the shortest way from his own abode to the scene of his daily labor, he
seldom varied his route, and truth to say, the strange little figure,
always watching so eagerly for his appearance, began to have an
attraction for him. He wondered what the boy meant by it, and at first,
naturally connected the idea of coppers with Wikkey's devotion; but he
soon came to see that it went deeper than that, for with a curious
instinct of delicacy which the lad would probably have been quite unable
to explain to himself, he would sometimes hang back as Lawrence reached
the pavement, and nod his funny "Good night, guvner," from midway on his
crossing, in a way that precluded any suspicion of mercenary motives.

But at last there came a season of desolation very nearly verging on
despair. Day after day for a week--ten days--a fortnight--did Wikkey
watch in vain for his hero. Poor lad, he could not know that Lawrence
had been suddenly summoned to the country, and had arranged for a
substitute to take his duty for a fortnight; and the terrible thought
haunted the child that the big chap had changed his route, perhaps even
out of dislike to his--Wikkey's--attentions, and he should never see his
face again. The idea was horrible--so horrible that as it became
strengthened by each day's disappointment, and at last took possession
of the boy's whole soul, it sapped away what little vitality there was
in the small, fragile frame, leaving it an easy prey to the biting wind
which caught his breath away as he crept shivering around the street
corners, and to the frost which clutched the thinly-clad body. The
cough, which Wikkey scarcely remembered ever being without, increased to
such violence as to shake him from head to foot, and his breathing
became hard and painful; yet still he clung to his crossing with the
pertinacity of despair, scanning each figure that approached with eager,
hungry eyes. He had laid out part of Lawrence's half-crown on a woolen
muffler, which at first had seemed a marvel of comf