I went my way,
with a sudden common impulse they kissed their hands at me, all rivalry
forgotten in their admiration, and kept kissing, bowing, and salaaming
until I was out of sight. "Not bad children," I mused as I went along,
"good stuff in them, whatever their faults." I thought of the poor boy's
stock, of the cheapness of it, and then it occurred to me that he had
charged me just twice as much for the paper I gave him back as for the
penny quire I bought. But when I went back to give him a piece of my mind
the boys were gone.

CHAPTER IV.

TONY AND HIS TRIBE

I have a little friend somewhere in Mott Street whose picture comes up
before me. I wish I could show it to the reader, but to photograph Tony is
one of the unattained ambitions of my life. He is one of the whimsical
birds one sees when he hasn't got a gun, and then never long enough in one
place to give one a chance to get it. A ragged coat three sizes at least
too large for the boy, though it has evidently been cropped to meet his
case, hitched by its one button across a bare brown breast; one sleeve
patched on the under side with a piece of sole-leather that sticks out
straight, refusing to be reconciled; trousers that boasted a seat once,
but probably not while Tony has worn them; two left boots tied on with
packing twine, bare legs in them the color of the leather, heel and toe
showing through; a shock of sunburnt hair struggling through the rent in
the old straw hat; two frank, laughing eyes under its broken brim--that is
Tony.

He stood over the gutter the day I met him, reaching for a handful of mud
with which to "paste" another hoodlum who was shouting defiance from
across the street. He did not see me, and when my hand touched his
shoulder his whole little body shrank with a convulsive shudder, as from
an expected blow. Quick as a flash he dodged, and turning, out of reach,
confronted the unknown enemy, gripping tight his handful of mud. I had a
bunch of white pinks which a young lady had given me half an hour before
for one of my little friends. "They are yours," I said, and held them out
to him, "take them."

Doubt, delight, and utter bewilderment struggled in the boy's face. He
said not one word, but when he had brought his mind to believe that it
really was so, clutched the flowers with one eager, grimy fist, held them
close against his bare breast, and, shielding them with the other, ran as
fast as his legs could carry him down th