"If you've got money enough to buy a box and brush, you can go in with
me."

"I don't think I should like it, Mike. It would spoil my clothes, and I
am afraid I wouldn't have money enough to buy others."

"I keep my dress suit at home--the one I wear to parties."

"Haven't you got any father or mother, Mike? How does it happen that you
are living in New York alone?"

"My farder is dead, and me mudder, she married a man wot ain't no good.
He'd bate me till I couldn't stand it. So I just run away."

"Where does your mother live?"

"In Albany."

"Some time when you earn money enough you can ask her to come here and
live with you."

"They don't take women at the Lodge."

"No, I suppose not," said Rodney, smiling.

"Besides she's got two little girls by her new husband, and she wouldn't
want to leave them."

By this time the shine was completed, and Rodney paid Mike.