[Lyric] Ragged Dick Chapter 2: JOHNNY NOLAN (Horatio Alger)

After Dick had finished polishing Mr. Greyson's boots he was
fortunate enough to secure three other customers, two of them
reporters in the Tribune establishment, which occupies the corner
of Spruce Street and Printing House Square.

When Dick had got through with his last customer the City Hall clock
indicated eight o'clock. He had been up an hour, and hard at work,
and naturally began to think of breakfast. He went up to the head
of Spruce Street, and turned into Nassau. Two blocks further, and he
reached Ann Street. On this street was a small, cheap restaurant,
where for five cents Dick could get a cup of coffee, and for ten
cents more, a plate of beefsteak with a plate of bread thrown in.
These Dick ordered, and sat down at a table.

It was a small apartment with a few plain tables unprovided with
cloths, for the class of customers who patronized it were not very
particular. Our hero's breakfast was soon before him. Neither the
coffee nor the steak were as good as can be bought at Delmonico's;
but then it is very doubtful whether, in the present state of his
wardrobe, Dick would have been received at that aristocratic
restaurant, even if his means had admitted of paying the high
prices there charged.
Dick had scarcely been served when he espied a boy about his own
size standing at the door, looking wistfully into the restaurant.
This was Johnny Nolan, a boy of fourteen, who was engaged in the
same profession as Ragged Dick. His wardrobe was in very much the
same condition as Dick's.

"Had your breakfast, Johnny?" inquired Dick, cutting off a piece of
steak.

"No."

"Come in, then. Here's room for you."

"I ain't got no money," said Johnny, looking a little enviously at
his more fortunate friend.

"Haven't you had any shines?"

"Yes, I had one, but I shan't get any pay till to-morrow."

"Are you hungry?"

"Try me, and see."

"Come in. I'll stand treat this morning."
Johnny Nolan was nowise slow to accept this invitation, and was soon
seated beside Dick.

"What'll you have, Johnny?"

"Same as you."

"Cup o' coffee and beefsteak," ordered Dick.

These were promptly brought, and Johnny attacked them vigorously.

Now, in the boot-blacking business, as well as in higher avocations,
the same rule prevails, that energy and industry are rewarded, and
indolence suffers. Dick was energetic and on the alert for business,
but Johnny the reverse. The consequence was that Dick earned
probably three times as much as the other.

"How do you like it?" asked Dick, surveying Johnny's attacks upon
the steak with evident complacency.

"It's hunky."

I don't believe "hunky" is to be found in either Webster's or
Worcester's big dictionary; but boys will readily understand what
it means.
"Do you come here often?" asked Johnny.

"Most every day. You'd better come too."

"I can't afford it."

"Well, you'd ought to, then," said Dick. "What do you do I'd
like to know?"

"I don't get near as much as you, Dick."

"Well you might if you tried. I keep my eyes open,--that's the way
I get jobs. You're lazy, that's what's the matter."

Johnny did not see fit to reply to this charge. Probably he felt the
justice of it, and preferred to proceed with the breakfast, which he
enjoyed the more as it cost him nothing.

Breakfast over, Dick walked up to the desk, and settled the bill.
Then, followed by Johnny, he went out into the street.

"Where are you going, Johnny?"

"Up to Mr. Taylor's, on Spruce Street, to see if he don't want a
shine."

"Do you work for him reg'lar?"

"Yes. Him and his partner wants a shine most every day. Where are
you goin'?"

"Down front of the Astor House. I guess I'll find some customers
there."

At this moment Johnny started, and, dodging into an entry way, hid
behind the door, considerably to Dick's surprise.

"What's the matter now?" asked our hero.

"Has he gone?" asked Johnny, his voice betraying anxiety.

"Who gone, I'd like to know?"

"That man in the brown coat."

"What of him. You ain't scared of him, are you?"

"Yes, he got me a place once."

"Where?"

"Ever so far off."

"What if he did?"

"I ran away."

"Didn't you like it?"

"No, I had to get up too early. It was on a farm, and I had to get
up at five to take care of the cows. I like New York best."

"Didn't they give you enough to eat?"

"Oh, yes, plenty."

"And you had a good bed?"

"Yes."

"Then you'd better have stayed. You don't get either of them here.
Where'd you sleep last night?"

"Up an alley in an old wagon."

"You had a better bed than that in the country, didn't you?"

"Yes, it was as soft as--as cotton."

Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection
supplying him with a comparison.

"Why didn't you stay?"

"I felt lonely," said Johnny.

Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the
case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is
uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is
lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached
to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels
discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle
and ever-varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the
country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always
dwelt.

Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a father
living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr. Nolan was
a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater part of his wages for
liquor. His potations made him ugly, and inflamed a temper never
very sweet, working him up sometimes to such a pitch of rage that
Johnny's life was in danger. Some months before, he had thrown a
flat-iron at his son's head with such terrific force that unless
Johnny had dodged he would not have lived long enough to obtain a
place in our story. He fled the house, and from that time had not
dared to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of
blacking, and he had set up in business on his own account. But he
had not energy enough to succeed, as has already been stated, and
I am afraid the poor boy had met with many hardships, and suffered
more than once from cold and hunger. Dick had befriended him more
than once, and often given him a breakfast or dinner, as the case
might be.

"How'd you get away?" asked Dick, with some curiosity. "Did
you walk?"

"No, I rode on the cars."

"Where'd you get your money? I hope you didn't steal it."

"I didn't have none."

"What did you do, then?"

"I got up about three o'clock, and walked to Albany."

"Where's that?" asked Dick, whose ideas on the subject of geography
were rather vague.

"Up the river."

"How far?"

"About a thousand miles," said Johnny, whose conceptions of distance
were equally vague.

"Go ahead. What did you do then?"

"I hid on top of a freight car, and came all the way without their
seeing me. That man in the brown coat was the man that got me the
place, and I'm afraid he'd want to send me back."

A fact.

"Well," said Dick, reflectively, "I dunno as I'd like to live in the
country. I couldn't go to Tony Pastor's or the Old Bowery. There
wouldn't be no place to spend my evenings. But I say, it's tough in
winter, Johnny, 'specially when your overcoat's at the tailor's, an'
likely to stay there."

"That's so, Dick. But I must be goin', or Mr. Taylor'll get somebody
else to shine his boots."

Johnny walked back to Nassau Street, while Dick kept on his way to
Broadway.

"That boy," soliloquized Dick, as Johnny took his departure, "ain't
got no ambition. I'll bet he won't get five shines to-day. I'm glad
I ain't like him. I couldn't go to the theatre, nor buy no cigars,
nor get half as much as I wanted to eat.--Shine yer boots, sir?"

Dick always had an eye to business, and this remark was addressed to
a young man, dressed in a stylish manner, who was swinging a jaunty
cane.

"I've had my boots blacked once already this morning, but this
confounded mud has spoiled the shine."

"I'll make 'em all right, sir, in a minute."

"Go ahead, then."

The boots were soon polished in Dick's best style, which proved very
satisfactory, our hero being a proficient in the art.

"I haven't got any change," said the young man, fumbling in his
pocket, "but here's a bill you may run somewhere and get changed.
I'll pay you five cents extra for your trouble."

He handed Dick a two-dollar bill, which our hero took into a store
close by.

"Will you please change that, sir?" said Dick, walking up to the
counter.

The salesman to whom he proffered it took the bill, and, slightly
glancing at it, exclaimed angrily, "Be off, you young vagabond, or
I'll have you arrested."

"What's the row?"

"You've offered me a counterfeit bill."

"I didn't know it," said Dick.

"Don't tell me. Be off, or I'll have you arrested."