e to be a office boy, and learn business, and grow
up 'spectable."

"Why don't you try, and see if you can't get a place, Dick?"

"Who'd take Ragged Dick?"

"But you aint ragged now, Dick."

"No," said Dick; "I look a little better than I did in my Washington
coat and Louis Napoleon pants. But if I got in a office, they
wouldn't give me more'n three dollars a week, and I couldn't live
'spectable on that."

"No, I suppose not," said Frank, thoughtfully. "But you would get
more at the end of the first year."

"Yes," said Dick; "but by that time I'd be nothin' but skin and
bones."

Frank laughed. "That reminds me," he said, "of the story of an
Irishman, who, out of economy, thought he would teach his horse to
feed on shavings. So he provided the horse with a pair of green
spectacles which made the shavings look eatable. But unfortunately,
just as the horse got learned, he up and died."

"The hoss must have been a fine specimen of architectur' by the time
he got through," remarked Dick.

"Whereabouts are we now?" asked Frank, as they emerged from Fourth
Avenue into Union Square.

"That is Union Park," said Dick, pointing to a beautiful enclosure,
in the centre of which was a pond, with a fountain playing.

"Is that the statue of General Washington?" asked Frank, pointing to
a bronze equestrian statue, on a granite pedestal.

"Yes," said Dick; "he's growed some since he was President. If
he'd been as tall as that when he fit in the Revolution, he'd have
walloped the Britishers some, I reckon."

Frank looked up at the statue, which is fourteen and a half feet
high, and acknowledged the justice of Dick's remark.

"How about the coat, Dick?" he asked. "Would it fit you?"

"Well, it might be rather loose," said Dick, "I aint much more'n
ten feet high with my boots off."

"No, I should think not," said Frank, smiling. "You're a queer boy,
Dick."

"Well, I've been brought up queer. Some boys is born with a silver
spoon in their mouth. Victoria's boys is born with a gold spoon, set
with di'monds; but gold and silver was scarce when I was born, and
mine was pewter."

"Perhaps the gold and silver will come by and by, Dick. Did you ever
hear of Dick Whittington?"

"Never did. Was he a Ragged Dick?"

"I shouldn't wonder if he was. At any rate he was very poor when he
was a boy, but he didn't stay so. Before he died, he became Lord
Mayor of London."

"Did he?" asked Dick, looking interested. "How did he do