"They might as well kill a man as scare him to death," he said, with
an attempt to get back to his customary flippancy. But the effort was
somewhat pitiful, and he felt guiltily conscious that a salt, warm
tear was creeping slowly down his face, and that a lump that would not
keep down was rising in his throat.
"'Tain't no fair thing for the whole police force to keep worrying at
a little boy like me," he said, in shame-faced apology. "I'm not doing
nothing wrong, and I'm half froze to death, and yet they keep a-
nagging at me."
It was so cold that when the boy stamped his feet against the
footboard to keep them warm, sharp pains shot up through his body, and
when he beat his arms about his shoulders, as he had seen real cabmen
do, the blood in his finger-tips tingled so acutely that he cried
aloud with the pain.
He had often been up that late before, but he had never felt so
sleepy. It was as if some one was pressing a sponge heavy with
chloroform near his face, and he could not fight off the drowsiness
that lay hold of him.
He saw, dimly hanging above his head, a round disc of light that
seemed like a great moon, and which he finally guessed to be the
clock-face for which he had been on the look-out.
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