MY special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of this city. It is simply a rush of the same people—hurrying this way or that on the same errands—doing the same shopping or eating at the same restaurants. It is a kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday. Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a _genre_ specimen, or an odd detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old bookseller with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar moldering in a stall—but the general effect is one of sameness and soon tires and bewilders. Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months’ pretty steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made many acquaintances along the route—and on reaching the city my first curiosity is in their behalf. One of these is a boy about six years of age—akin in his fragile body and his serious mien, a youngster that is very precious to one. I first saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a short round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate, and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day. On going up town that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still at his place, white and patient and silent. Every day afterwards I saw him there, always with the short stick in his hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony rattling the stick in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his plaything and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.