But there was no answer.

"Rose," he repeated, not stirring from his recumbent position, "have you got anything to eat in the house?"

But the little girl whom he addressed was already in her new home on Franklin Street.

"Why don't you answer?" demanded he, angrily. "I'll give you a licking."

As this threat also elicited² no response, he turned over and rose slowly.

"The gal³ isn't here," he said, after looking about him. "She's gone out with her scamp of a brother. He's an obstinate⁴ young rascal⁵. I'll give him a flogging some time."

Martin had often had the disposition⁶ to inflict⁷ punishment upon our hero, but there was a sturdy courage and firmness about Rough and Ready that promised a determined⁸ opposition⁹. So he had escaped where a weaker and more timid boy would have suffered bad treatment.

Though Martin missed Rose he had no idea yet that she had left him for good, as the saying is. He supposed that she had gone out to stand by her brother when he was selling papers. He had often been drunk before, and probably expected to be often again. He felt no particular shame at disposing of the little girl's clothes for rum. He had somehow formed the idea that it was the newsboy's duty to support the family, and felt that he had no business to spend so much money on his sister's dress. He could not understand, therefore, why Rough and Ready should be so angry.

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