"Daily News--Tele--_graph_--Morning pay--_par-s_--pay--_pars_" sang Robin, imitating the cries of the other boys. He had a sweet voice, and notwithstanding his troublesome cough, which the celebrated "Cough-no-more" lozenges had quite failed to take away, he cried his goods right lustily. But though he cried himself hoarse and almost sick, he did not cry away a single one of his store of papers; no one seemed to care for politics that morning. In vain great public questions, which were then exciting attention, filled the columns; in vain fresh accounts of foreign wars, and fresh demands to help our starving countrymen abroad, stared from the pages; the City men wanted none of these things to-day, at least they wanted none of them from Robin. The streets were too dirty, the cold too intense, for these individuals, already rather late for business, to put their hands into their pockets for the purpose of drawing out pence, to supply themselves with foreign news. They neither wanted foreign nor home news just then. The cold was making them selfish, even more selfish than most of them were every day. They neither cared for the foreigners' joys or sorrows, nor for the neighbour's wants. No one stopped to listen to Robin's cough, nor allowed his heart to look out of his eyes into Robin's thin, eager face. So it happened that Robin sold none of his papers; the more fortunate boys pushed him aside, and jeered at him, and he had no heart to knock them down, as under other circumstances he would have done. "Sneak" some of these fellows called him, for they knew, by his way even of handling his papers, that newspaper vending was not his usual employment. "Serve him right," cried others, "as if _he_ could call papers proper!" So passed by, by those whom he had hoped would have been his customers, and unkindly treated by his companions, at twelve o'clock, he tucked his rejected goods under his arm and trudged slowly westward. As he walked he saw a crowd of eager little children all pushing against a shut door. The children were dressed very little, if at all, better than himself. He stopped and demanded what they were doing there. "Oh! this 'ere's h'our school," said one little girl. "This 'ere's the ragged school, and we're goin' to 'ave a feast--buns and oranges, and tea and coffee--ain't it prime?" "Don't yo wish yo were comin'?" laughed a big boy, to Robin. Robin suddenly remembered the card the gentleman had given him a year and a half ago, and his accompanying remark that the ragged school was made for little boys like him. His face brightened; he did not know that school possessed tea, and coffee, and cake, and oranges. Long ago, had he been aware of this fact, would it have had the benefit of his society. Squaring his shoulders, and pushing his way to right and left, he planted himself firmly, one of the nearest to the door. He had a right to go in there, and he would go. "What's that for?" said the lad who had spoken before.