Suitcase he had not, nor any baggage but his trunk to hinder him. He
had discovered that the trunk could remain in the station for a day
without charge. The handsome raincoat and umbrella which had been a
part of the outfit the tailor had sent him that spring were all his
encumbrances, so he picked his way unhampered across Liberty Street,
eyeing his former enemies, the policemen, and every little urchin or
newsboy with interest. Of course Buck and the rest would have grown up
and changed some; they wouldn’t likely be selling papers now—but—these
were boys such as he had been. He bought a paper off a little ragged
fellow with a pinched face, and a strange sensation came over him. When
he left this city he was the newsboy, and now he had money enough to
buy a paper—and the education to read it! What a difference! Not that
he wanted the paper at present, though it might prove interesting
later, but he wanted the experience of buying it. It marked the era of
change in his life and made the contrast tremendous. Immediately his
real purpose in having an education, the uplift of his fellow-beings,
which had been most vague during the years, took form and leapt into
vivid interest, as he watched the little skinny legs of the newsboy
nimbly scrambling across the muddy street under the feet of horses, and
between automobiles, in imminent danger of his life.
Michael had thought it all out, just what he would do, and he proceeded
to carry out his purpose. He had no idea what a fine picture of
well-groomed youth and manly beauty he presented as he marched down the
street. He walked like a king, and New York abashed him no more now
that he had come back than it did before he went away. There are some
spirits born that way. He walked like a “gentleman, unafraid.”
He had decided not to go to Mr. Endicott until he had found lodgings
somewhere. An innate delicacy had brought him to this decision. He
would not put one voluntary burden upon his kind benefactor. Born and
bred in the slums, whence came this fineness of feeling? Who shall say?
Michael threaded his way through the maze of traffic, instinct and
vague stirrings of memory guiding him to a quiet shabby street where he
found a dingy little room for a small price. The dangers that might
have beset a strange young man in the great city were materially
lessened for him on account of his wide reading. He had read up New
York always wherever he found an article or book or story that touched
upon it; and without realizing it he was well versed in details. He had
even pondered for hours over a map of New York that he found in the
back of an old magazine, comparing it with his faint memories, until he
knew the location of things with relation to one another pretty well. A
stranger less versed might have gotten into most undesirable quarters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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