"The folks she boarded with took care of me, but they was poor, and
they couldn't do much. When I was seven the woman died, and her
husband went out West, and then I had to scratch for myself."

"At seven years old!" exclaimed Frank, in amazement.

"Yes," said Dick, "I was a little feller to take care of myself,
but," he continued with pardonable pride, "I did it."

"What could you do?"

"Sometimes one thing, and sometimes another," said Dick. "I changed
my business accordin' as I had to. Sometimes I was a newsboy, and
diffused intelligence among the masses, as I heard somebody say once
in a big speech he made in the Park. Them was the times when Horace
Greeley and James Gordon Bennett made money."

"Through your enterprise?" suggested Frank.

"Yes," said Dick; "but I give it up after a while."

"What for?"

"Well, they didn't always put news enough in their papers, and
people wouldn't buy 'em as fast as I wanted 'em to. So one mornin'
I was stuck on a lot of Heralds, and I thought I'd make a sensation.
So I called out 'GREAT NEWS! QUEEN VICTORIA ASSASSINATED!' All my
Heralds went off like hot cakes, and I went off, too, but one of
the gentlemen what got sold remembered me, and said he'd have me