shining.

"I'll pay for your dinner!" Bert exclaimed. "Come! We don't have a
Thanksgiving but once a year, and a feller wants a good time then."

"But you are waiting for another boy."

"Oh, Hop Houghton! He won't come now, it's so late. He's gone to a
place down in North Street, I guess--a place I don't like: there's so
much tobacco smoked and so much beer drank there." Bert cast a final
glance up the street. "No, he won't come now. So much the worse for
him! He likes the men down there; I don't."

"Ah!" said the man, taking off his hat, and giving it a brush with his
elbow, as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as
respectable as he could in the eyes of a newsboy of such fastidious
tastes.

To make him feel quite comfortable in his mind on that point, Bert
hastened to say:

"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are
just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't the least mite
aristocratic."

"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look
relieved. "I'm very glad to hear it."

He placed his hat on the floor and took a seat opposite Bert at a
little table, which they had all to themselves.

Bert offered him the bill of fare.

"No, I must ask you to choose for me; but nothing very extravagant,
you know. I'm used to plain fare."

"So am I. But I'm going to have a good dinner for once in my life, and
so shall you!" cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken
soup, and then wind up with a thumping big piece of squash pie? How's
that for a Thanksgiving dinner?"

"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of
the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too
much?"

"Too much? No, _sir_!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents;
pie--they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you--ten cents.
That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do
this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in
a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were
no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.

"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man
asked.

Bert's face grew sober in a moment.

"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got
the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home
for her, so we can live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners
t