eal--I can say that much for him."

"There's one thing I noticed about the boy," said the colonel,
reflectively. "He wouldn't drink. More than once I have asked him to
drink with me, but he would always say, 'Thank you, colonel, but I
don't like whiskey.' I never asked him to take anything else, for
whiskey's the only drink fit for a gentleman. Do you expect to get the
boy back?"

"If I could only get out for a day I'd hunt him up; but I'm tied down
here."

"I seed him yesterday, Tim," said a red-nosed man who had just entered
the saloon, in company with a friend of the same general appearance.
Both wore silk hats, dented and soiled with stains of dirt, coats long
since superannuated, and wore the general look of barroom loafers.

They seldom had any money, but lay in wait for any liberal stranger,
in the hope of securing a free drink.

"Where did you see him, Hooker?" asked Tim Bolton, with sudden
interest.

"Selling papers down by the Astor House."

"Think of that, colonel!" said Tim, disgusted. "Becomin' a common
newsboy, when he might be in a genteel employment! Did you speak to
him, Hooker?"

"Yes, I asked him if he had left you."

"What did he say?"

"That he had left you for good--that he was going to grow up
respectable!"

"Think of that!" said Tim, with renewed disgust. "Did he say where he
lived?"

"No."

"Did he ask after me?"

"No, except he said that you were no relation of his. He said he
expected you stole him when he was a kid, and he hoped some time to
find his relations."

Tim Bolton's face changed color, and he was evidently disturbed. Could
the boy have heard anything? he wondered, for his suspicions were very
near the truth.

"It's all nonsense!" he said, roughly. "Next time you see him, Hooker,
foller him home, and find out where he lives."

"All right, Tim. It ought to be worth something," he insinuated, with
a husky cough.

"That's so. What'll you take?"

"Whiskey," answered Hooker, with a look of pleased anticipation.

"You're a gentleman, Tim," he said, as he gulped down the contents of
a glass without winking.

Briggs, his dilapidated companion, had been looking on in thirsty
envy.

"I'll help Hooker to look for Dodger," he said.

"Very well, Briggs."

"Couldn't you stand a glass for me, too, Tim?" asked Briggs, eagerly.

"No," answered Bolton, irritably. "I've been at enough expense for
that young rascal already."

But the colonel noticed the pathetic lo