A FRIEND IN NEED.

When Ralph awoke, it was quite dark in the room.  He was still sitting at the round table, but Rhyming Joe had disappeared from the other side of it.  He looked around the room, and saw that an oil-lamp was burning behind the bar, and that two or three rough-looking men stood there with the bar-tender, talking and drinking.  But the young man who had dined with him was nowhere to be seen.  Ralph arose, and went over to the bar.

“Can you tell me where Joe is, please?” he asked of the bar-tender.

“Joe?  Oh, he went out a half-an-hour ago.  I don’t know where he went, sonny.”  And the man went on filling the glasses, and talking to the other men.  Ralph stood for a moment, in deep thought, then he asked:—­

“Did Joe say when he would be back?”

The bar-tender paid no attention to him, and, after a few moments, the boy repeated the question.

“Mr. Bummerton, did Joe say when he would be back?”

“No, he didn’t,” responded the man, in a surly tone; “I don’t know nothing about him.”

Ralph went back, and stood by the stove to consider the matter.  He thought it was very strange.  He could hardly believe that Rhyming Toe had intended to desert him in this way.  He preferred to think that the fellow had become helpless, and that Bummerton had dragged him into some other room.  He knew that Joe used to get that way, years before, in Philadelphia.  He had seen much of him during the wretched period of his life with Simon Craft.  Joe and the old man were together a great deal during that time.  They were engaged jointly in an occupation which was not strictly within the limit of the law, and which, therefore, required mutual confidence.  The young fellow had, apparently, taken a great liking to Ralph, had made much of him in a jovial way, and, indeed, in several instances, had successfully defended him against the results of Old Simon’s wrath.  The child had come to regard him as a friend, and had not been displeased to meet him, after all these years, in this unexpected manner.  He had had a general idea that the young man’s character was not good, and that his life was not moral, but he had not expected to be badly treated by him.  Now, however, he felt compelled to believe that Joe had abused the privileges of friendship.  The more he thought of it, the more sure he became that he had been deceived and deserted.  He was alone in a strange city, without money or friends.  What was to be done?

Perhaps the bar-tender, understanding the difficulty, would help him out of it.  He resolved to apply to him.

“Mr. Bummerton,” he said, approaching the bar again, “now’t Joe’s gone, an’ I ain’t got no money, I don’t see how I’m goin’ to git home.  Could—­could you lend me enough to pay my fare up?  I’ll send it back to you right away.  I will,—­honest!”

The man pushed both his hands into the pockets of his pantaloons, and stood for a minute staring at the boy, in feigned astonishment.