g sorry for the friendless boy, the old man impulsively went up to
him and patted him on the shoulder, saying:

"What! In trouble, my lad? Never mind; never look down! I'll warrant ye
an honest lad from what I've seen myself. Come! come! pluck up a spirit!
I'll see you through, my lad."

"'Lad!' Lord bless your soul, sir, he's no more a lad than you or I! The
young rascal is a girl in boy's clothes, sir!" said the officer who had
the culprit in custody.

"What--what--what!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, gazing in consternation
from the young prisoner to the accuser; "what--what! my newsboy, my
saucy little prince of patches, a girl in boy's clothes?"

"Yes, sir--a young scoundrel! I actually twigged him selling papers at
the Fulton Ferry this morning! A little rascal!"

"A girl in boy's clothes! A girl!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, with his
eyes nearly starting out of his head.

Just then the young culprit looked up in his face with an expression
half melancholy, half mischievous, that appealed to the rugged heart of
the old man. Turning around to the policeman, he startled the whole
office by roaring out:

"Girl, is she, sir? Then, demmy, sir, whether a girl in boy's clothes,
or men's clothes, or soldier's clothes, or sailor's clothes, or any
clothes, or no clothes, sir, treat her with the delicacy due to
womanhood, sir! ay, and the tenderness owed to childhood! for she is but
a bit of a poor, friendless, motherless, fatherless child, lost and
wandering in your great Babylon! No more hard words to her, sir--or by
the ever-lasting----"

"Order!" put in the calm and dignified Recorder.

Old Hurricane, though his face was still purple, his veins swollen and
his eyeballs glaring with anger, immediately recovered himself, turned
and bowed to the Recorder and said:

"Yes, sir, I will keep order, if you'll make that brute of a policeman
reform his language!"

And so saying Old Hurricane subsided into a seat immediately behind the
child, to watch the examination.

"What'll they do with her, do you think?" he inquired of a bystander.

"Send her down, in course."

"Down! Where?"

"To Blackwell's Island--to the work'us, in course."

"To the workhouse--her, that child?--the wretches! Um-m-m-me! Oh-h-h!"
groaned Old Hurricane, stooping and burying his shaggy gray head in his
great hands.

He felt his shoulder touched, and, looking up, saw that the little
prisoner had turned around, and was about to speak to him.

"G