Page:Waifs and Strays (1917).djvu/89

In ten minutes each of us was holding a sparrow spitted upon a stick over the leaping flames.

“Say,” said my fellow bivouacker, “this ain’t so bad when a fellow’s hungry. It reminds me of when I struck New York first—about fifteen years ago. I come in from the West to see if I could get a job on a newspaper. I hit the Madison Square Park the first mornin’ after, and was sittin’ around on the benches. I noticed the sparrows chirpin’, and the grass and trees so nice and green that I thought I was back in the country again. Then I got some papers out of my pocket, and———”

“I know,” I interrupted. “You sent it to the Sun and got $15.”

“Say,” said my friend, suspiciously, “you seem to know a good deal. Where was you? I went to sleep on the bench there, in the sun, and somebody touched me for every cent I had—$15.”