"Yes, zir; yes, zir. Give us a 'ap'ny, zir. I be rare and 'ungry, zir." "No, I make it a principle never to encourage idling; you must work for your halfpenny, I have told you this already. There are a thousand things you can do; go as an errand-boy, sweep a crossing--your hands were not given you for nothing; but here," taking a card out of his pocket, "is the address of a nice ragged school, opened for little boys like you. Let me persuade you, my dear lad, to go there this evening; any one will read the address I have written here for you." He put the card into Robin's hand and moved off, the boy raising after him once more his shrill cry-- "I be rare and 'ungry, zir; give us a 'ap'ny, and God bless yer." A moment or two later the gentleman missed his pocket handkerchief, which Robin soon sold for a plentiful meal. It never occurred to him that Robin was the thief, for the child had an innocent, nay, contradictory as it may sound, an honest, open expression, which forbade any such thought in connection with him. The gentleman walked on, pleased with himself and his well-chosen words: he had read the little street lad a lecture, and put him in the way of entering the paths of goodness. It never crossed his mind that he might have employed his time better by giving Robin the halfpenny he desired; or, better still, by putting him in the way of earning it for himself. He walked on, well pleased with himself, but nevertheless shocked for Robin. "Ignorant of all but the name of the Almighty! Who'd have thought it? who _would_ have thought it, in our enlightened days, and without a home, too. I did not suppose there was such a case left in London. What with our industrial schools, and reformatories, and ragged schools, and refuges of all sorts, there ought not to be one such child now left in London." Quite right, Mr. Philanthropist--there _ought_ not to be; but what if it has been proved by the most careful computation that cases such as Robin's, number in our city, not by hundreds, but by thousands?* * "The number of destitutes, or homeless juveniles under sixteen years of age in London, cannot be less than thirty thousand."--_From a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Liverpool, Oct._ 1876 CHAPTER II. _WHAT THE COUNTRY FOLKS DID FOR HIM._ That night Robin, for the first time, as far as man was concerned, utterly friendless, lay down under an archway to sleep. He had often slept under archways, and his position outwardly was no different from what it had been the night before. The philanthropist's pocket handkerchief had yielded him a bun for his supper; he was not hungry, he was stupid and tired from sorrow, and he quickly fell asleep; but his sleep was not happy, his loneliness pursued him even into the land of dreams. He was alone, quite alone, that was the thought that haunted him. Suddenly he was awakened by a very gentle sound in his ear, and the sensation of something warm rubbing his cheek.