“On a big ship.” “Were you a stowaway?” “I helped the seamen.” That is the story of Jan Pier. He ran away from home, when a small boy, went to Turkey, learned Greek, and four years later shipped for America, and landed at Norfolk. In the course of a short time he drifted to Charlotte, where he has been very unhappy, nobody to talk with, no kind friend to help him, and no wise hand to guide him. His energy, courage, and stout heart and body have kept him going. But, now, alas, he is tired of the struggle among strangers, who do not understand his language, and will go back to Norfolk, and, perhaps, home. A generous-hearted Greek, of one of the Greek restaurants, is getting up a purse to defray his railroad fare to the Virginia city. Soon the little outcast will say “adieu.” When Jan came to me the second time, with the woe-begone look, I took him to Buster Brown, the mailing clerk, and recommended him for a newsboy. Buster ran his cruel eye over him and asked, in Pilot Mountain vernacular: “Have you ever harpooned the public in any way?” “A coup sur,” said Jan. “What’s that you’ve handed me?” asked Buster. “‘Surely,’ he means,” said I. “What is he?” “French.” “Will you accept me as a friend?” asked Buster, proud to have a real Frenchman for an employé. “A bras ouverts,” was the reply. “Come again,” said the Pilot Mountain man. “He says ‘with open arms’ he will be your friend.” “Good, I gad.” “Coute qu’il coute,” declared Jan, smiling. “The devil abit,” said Dick Allen, who had just come up, “and what is it he says?” “He has sworn to be Buster’s friend ‘Let it cost what it may.’” “A beau jeu, beau retour (one good turn deserves another).” Buster and Jan, the one six-feet-five, erect, weighing 260, and the other, four-feet-one, stocky, and stooped, ambled off toward the press room. “That pile of old papers, under the table, will be your bed, Monsieur Jan Pier,” said Buster. “Your drawing room and all. The spigot will be your wash basin, and any old issue of _The Observer_ or _Chronicle_, your towel. May you prosper.” Jan Pier stirred the enmity of the native newsboys, some of whom hammered him the next morning when out of sight of the shop force. Although dejected and sad, the Frenchman sold every paper he took out. Offering one to a traveling man, who was climbing in a hack at the Selwyn, he imagined that his offer had been accepted, and ran to the station, four blocks away, keeping close in the wake of the hustling horse. Seeing what the boy had done the salesman said: “I will take two.” Jan was delighted. Unable to talk and tell his troubles, surrounded by hostile youngsters, and contending with prospective customers made life one long, desperate fight for the Frenchman. The climax came one night, when he slumbered in his corner beneath the table in the press room, and a loafer, a town lad, slept above him. Somebody, on mischief bent, turned the hose on the shaver on the top berth, and the water poured down on Jan.