"
But presently he was induced to go, although he continued to answer her
questions in the savage, distrustful manner of his class. They went into a
cheap eating-house and saloon, through the "Ladies' Entrance," and while
they sat at a table there, she learned by means of resolute and patient
questions that the boy earned his living by blacking shoes now and then,
and that he did not know who his parents were, as he had been "put" with a
family whose ill-usage he had fled from to live in the street. He began
to melt under her manifestations of interest in him, and with pretended
reluctance he gave his promise to wash his face and hands and to call upon
her that evening at the theatrical boarding-house on Twenty-seventh Street
where she was living. Then she left him.
When he called, she took him to her room and induced him to allow her to
comb his hair. A deal of persuasion was necessary to this. Then she took
him out and bought him a cheap suit of clothes on the Bowery. A half-hour
later he was standing with her in the wings at Miner's Variety Theatre. A
man and woman were doing a song and dance upon the stage.
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