Читать книгу The Young Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Secret Service. Winning his way in the Secret Service онлайн

29 страница из 53

Willie smiled good-bye. When the newsy turned away, he darted around the corner and bolted into the first vacant hallway he came to.

The lad that emerged from that hallway a moment later bore little resemblance to the boy who had entered it. The ragged old coat that Willie had obtained was many sizes too large for him, even as it had been for the newsy, and it effectually concealed Willie’s own coat. His neat, well-creased trousers looked strangely at variance with the coat, but Willie remedied that in a moment. Some ash cans stood by the curb. It took very little of the ashes to spoil the good appearance of both his trousers and his shoes. It came hard to Willie to soil his clothes this way, even though he knew the dust would brush out; for these were the best clothes he owned. A few smears of dirt on his face, and the old, torn cap completed the change so effectively that Willie would hardly have known himself could he have looked in a mirror. As for selling papers, that was nothing new at all for Willie. He had sold papers for years at home, when he was a bit younger.