The second morning he turned his steps southward, and walked down Broadway.  It was a leisurely walk, for he had no scruple in stopping wherever he saw anything in the streets or in the shop windows that seemed to him worthy of attention.  About the corner of Canal Street he was very much surprised at a boy who was on his knees, blacking the boots of an elderly gentleman—­a boy whom he recognized at once as the son of a man who had for years been in his father’s employ as gardener at Castle Roscoe.

“What brings him here?” thought Hector, much surprised.

“Larry Deane!” he said, as the boy finished his job, and rose from his feet to receive his pay.

“Hector Roscoe!” exclaimed Larry, not much less surprised.

“What brings you here, and what has reduced you to such work?” inquired Hector.

Larry Deane was a boy of about Hector’s age.  He was a healthy-looking country lad, looking like many another farmer’s son, fresh from the country.  He had not yet acquired that sharp, keen look which characterizes, in most cases, the New York boy who has spent all his life in the streets.

“I can answer both your questions with the same word, Master Hector,” said Larry, as a sober look swept over his broad, honest face.

“Don’t call me master, Larry.  We are equals here.  But what is that word?”

“That word is trouble,’” answered the bootblack.

“Come with me into this side street,” said Hector, leading the way into Howard Street.  “You have a story to tell, and I want to hear it.”

“Yes, I have a story to tell.”

“I hope your father and mother are well,” said Hector, interrupting him.

“Yes, they are well in health, but they are in trouble, as I told you.”

“What is the trouble?”

“It all comes of Mr. Allan Roscoe,” answered Larry, “and his son, Guy.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“I was walking in the fields one day,” said Larry, “when Guy came out and began to order me round, and call me a clodhopper and other unlikely names, which I didn’t enjoy.  Finally he pulled off my hat, and when I put it back on my head, he pulled it off again.  Finally I found the only way to do was to give him as good as he sent.  So I pulled off his hat and threw it up in a tree.  He became very angry, and ordered me to go up after it.  I wouldn’t do it, but walked away.  The next day my father was summoned to the house, where Mr. Allan Roscoe complained of me for insulting his son.  He asked my father to thrash me, and when father refused, he discharged him from his employment.  A day or two afterward a new gardener came to Roscoe Castle, and father understood that there was no chance of his being taken back.”

“That was very mean in Mr. Roscoe,” said Hector, indignantly.

“Yes, so it was; but father couldn’t do anything.  He couldn’t get a new place, for it wasn’t the right time of year, and Mr. Roscoe said he wouldn’t give him a recommendation.  Well, we had very little money in the house, for mother has been sick of late years, and all father’s extra earnings went to pay for medicines and the doctor’s bill.  So one day I told father I would come to New York and see if I couldn’t find something to do.”