Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/26

6 "I shipped from San Francisco, but I'm not from there originally. I came from Buffalo, New York."

"You're a good distance from home."

"I haven't any home there, any more." The boy stopped eating and drew a deep breath. "No, I haven't any home anywhere," he added, in a lower tone. "I'm what they call a rolling stone."

"What is your name? Mine is Ralph Harmon, as you probably know by the sign over the door."

"My name is Lawrence Russell—although everyone that knows me calls me Larry. I used to have as nice a home as anybody in Buffalo, but that's some years ago."

"I'll wager you have quite a story to tell—if you've a mind to spin the yarn, as you sailors call it."

"Yes, I have a story; but whether it would interest a stranger or not I don't know, Mr. Harmon. I ran away from home, or rather, from what was supposed to be my home, after my mother died."

"Running away isn't, generally speaking, a good business, Larry."

"I know it, and I wouldn't have gone only I was forced to it. You see, I never knew what it was to have a father. My father died when I was a baby,