“Didn’t you have no brothers nor sisters?” asked Dick.

“No,” said Fosdick; “father and I used to live alone.  He was always so much company to me that I feel very lonesome without him.  There’s a man out West somewhere that owes him two thousand dollars.  He used to live in the city, and father lent him all his money to help him go into business; but he failed, or pretended to, and went off.  If father hadn’t lost that money he would have left me well off; but no money would have made up his loss to me.”

“What’s the man’s name that went off with your father’s money?”

“His name is Hiram Bates.”

“P’r’aps you’ll get the money again, sometime.”

“There isn’t much chance of it,” said Fosdick.  “I’d sell out my chances of that for five dollars.”

“Maybe I’ll buy you out sometime,” said Dick.  “Now, come round and see what sort of a room I’ve got.  I used to go to the theatre evenings, when I had money; but now I’d rather go to bed early, and have a good sleep.”

“I don’t care much about theatres,” said Fosdick.  “Father didn’t use to let me go very often.  He said it wasn’t good for boys.”

“I like to go to the Old Bowery sometimes.  They have tip-top plays there.  Can you read and write well?” he asked, as a sudden thought came to him.

“Yes,” said Fosdick.  “Father always kept me at school when he was alive, and I stood pretty well in my classes.  I was expecting to enter at the Free Academy* next year.”

* Now the college of the city of New York.

“Then I’ll tell you what,” said Dick; “I’ll make a bargain with you.  I can’t read much more’n a pig; and my writin’ looks like hens’ tracks.  I don’t want to grow up knowin’ no more’n a four-year-old boy.  If you’ll teach me readin’ and writin’ evenin’s, you shall sleep in my room every night.  That’ll be better’n door-steps or old boxes, where I’ve slept many a time.”

“Are you in earnest?” said Fosdick, his face lighting up hopefully.

“In course I am,” said Dick.  “It’s fashionable for young gentlemen to have private tootors to introduct ’em into the flower-beds of literatoor and science, and why shouldn’t I foller the fashion?  You shall be my perfessor; only you must promise not to be very hard if my writin’ looks like a rail-fence on a bender.”

“I’ll try not to be too severe,” said Fosdick, laughing.  “I shall be thankful for such a chance to get a place to sleep.  Have you got anything to read out of?”

“No,” said Dick.  “My extensive and well-selected library was lost overboard in a storm, when I was sailin’ from the Sandwich Islands to the desert of Sahara.  But I’ll buy a paper.  That’ll do me a long time.”

Accordingly Dick stopped at a paper-stand, and bought a copy of a weekly paper, filled with the usual variety of reading matter,—­stories, sketches, poems, etc.

They soon arrived at Dick’s lodging-house.  Our hero, procuring a lamp from the landlady, led the way into his apartment, which he entered with the proud air of a proprietor.