She went to a number of the
smaller dry goods stores and secured promises of employment for the
boy as parcel deliverer. To do this work he must have a tricycle, and
the energetic little lady having found a secondhand one that could be
had for thirty dollars, set herself to secure this sum from several of
her friends. This she had done, and was on her way to buy the tricycle
when she lost her pocketbook. The owner of the tricycle, being anxious
to sell, and having another offer, would not hold it for her, but sold
it to the other customer. The boy, bitterly disappointed, lost hope
and heart, and that night left the place where Mrs. Russell had put
him. Since then she had sought in vain for him, and now, unwilling to
give him up, she had come to ask the bishop's help in the search.
To all this Tode listened with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart,
while before his mind flashed a picture of himself, wet, dirty and
ragged, gliding under the feet of the horses on the muddy street, the
missing pocketbook clutched tightly in his hand. Then a second picture
rose before him, and he saw himself crowding the emptied book into
that box on the chapel door of St. Mark's.
The bishop pulled open a drawer in his desk and took from it a
pocketbook, broken and stained with mud.
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