“Wait till you have heard my story, and then you won’t blame me.”

“Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business; but let me tell you, Tom, in the beginning, that I won’t go with a fellow who has run away from his father and mother.”

“Pooh!  What’s the use of talking in that way?”

Tom was evidently disconcerted by this decided stand of his companion.  He knew that his bump of firmness was well developed, and whatever he said he meant.

“You had better return home, Tom.  Boys that run away from home don’t often amount to much.  Take my advice, and go home,” added Bobby.

“To such a home as mine!” said Tom, gloomily.  “If I had such a home as yours, I would not have left it.”

Bobby got a further idea from this remark of the true state of the case, and the consideration moved him.  Tom’s father was a notoriously intemperate man, and the boy had nothing to hope for from his precept or his example.  He was the child of a drunkard, and as much to be pitied as blamed for his vices.  His home was not pleasant.  He who presided over it, and who should have made a paradise of it, was its evil genius, a demon of wickedness, who blasted its flowers as fast as they bloomed.

Tom had seemed truly penitent both during his illness and since his recovery.  His one great desire now was to get away from home, for home to him was a place of torment.  Bobby suspected all this, and in his great heart he pitied his companion.  He did not know what to do.

“I am sorry for you, Tom,” said he, after he had considered the matter in this new light; “but I don’t see what I can do for you.  I doubt whether it would be right for me to help you run away from your parents.”

“I don’t want you to help me run away.  I have done that already.”

“But if I let you go with me, it will be just the same thing.  Besides, since you told me those lies this morning, I haven’t much confidence in you.”

“I couldn’t help that.”

“Yes, you could.  Couldn’t help lying?”

“What could I do?  You would have gone right back and told my father.”

“Well, we will go up to Mr. Bayard’s store, and then we will see what can be done.”

“I couldn’t stay at home, sure,” continued Tom, as they walked along together.  “My father even talked of binding me out to a trade.”

“Did he?”

Bobby stopped short in the street; for it was evident that, as this would remove him from his unhappy home, and thus effect all he professed to desire, he had some other purpose in view.

“What are you stopping for, Bob?”

“I think you better go back, Tom.”

“Not I; I won’t do that, whatever happens.”

“If your father will put you to a trade, what more do you want?”

“I won’t go to a trade, any how.”

Bobby said no more, but determined to consult with Mr. Bayard about the matter; and Tom was soon too busily engaged in observing the strange sights and sounds of the city to think of any thing else.