his faults and what his virtues, for I can
assure my readers that street boys do have virtues sometimes, and when
they are thoroughly convinced that a questioner feels an interest in
them will drop the "chaff" in which they commonly indulge, and talk
seriously and feelingly of their faults and hardships. Some do this for
a purpose, no doubt, and the verdant stranger is liable to be taken in
by assumed virtue, and waste sympathy on those who do not deserve it.
But there are also many boys who have good tendencies and aspirations,
and only need to be encouraged and placed under right influences to
develop into worthy and respectable men.

The conversation recorded above took place at the foot of Cortlandt
Street, opposite the ferry wharf. It was nearly time for the train, and
there was the usual scene of confusion. Express wagons, hacks, boys,
laborers, were gathering, presenting a confusing medley to the eye of
one unaccustomed to the spectacle.

Ben was a luggage boy, his occupation being to wait at the piers for the
arrival of steamboats, or at the railway stations, on the chance of
getting a carpet-bag or valise to carry. His business was a precarious
one. Sometimes he was lucky, sometimes unlucky. When he was flush, he
treated himself to a "square meal," and finished up the day at Tony
Pastor's, or the Old Bowery, where from his seat in the pit he indulged
in independent criticism of the acting, as he leaned back in his seat
and munched peanuts, throwing the shells about carelessly.

It is not surprising that the street-boys like the Old Bowery, and are
willing to stint their stomachs, or run the risk of a night in the
streets, for the sake of the warm room and the glittering illusions of
the stage, introducing them for the time being to the society of nobles
and ladies of high birth, and enabling them to forget for a time the
hardships of their own lot, while they follow with rapt interest the
fortunes of Lord Frederic Montressor or the Lady Imogene Delacour.
Strange as it may seem, the street Arab has a decided fancy for these
pictures of aristocracy, and never suspects their want of fidelity. When
the play ends, and Lord Frederic comes to his own, having foiled all the
schemes of his crafty and unprincipled enemies, no one rejoices more
than the ragged boy who has sat through the evening an interested
spectator of the play, and in his pleasure at the successful denouement,
he almost forgets that he will probabl