that, an' then what good would it do me? "

"But you hain't goin' to let him carry you off, be you?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Ned, and he began to cry piteously again,
while Joe tried to soothe him by wiping away the big tears with the
cuff of his jacket.

"I think you'd better let me tell the captain," he said.

"I can't, 'cause he knows another man on the boat, an' one of them
would be sure to kill me. Why won't you let me just go with you?"

"I would if I knew where I was goin'; but you see, I'm most as bad off
as you are;" and
then Joe told him of his misfortune in having become an involuntary
passenger, concluding his story by saying, "An' I've got a mother
that'll feel just as bad as yours will; it will be worse for "her, too,
'cause she says now that father's dead I'm all that she's got, an'
every cent I make I carry home to her, 'cause she has to work hard to
get money to pay the rent."

Joe could understand very readily, by Ned's clothing, that their homes
were widely different.Had it not been for his uniform, the messenger
boy would have worn a very shabby suit of clothes, while Ned was not
only dressed expensively, but he wore what was, to Joe, the very height
of extravagance - a gold ring.

"Even if you don't know where you're goin', take me with you," said
Ned. "If you'd help