He wore a velveteen jacket, and pantaloons which atoned, by their
extra length, for the holes resulting from hard usage and
antiquity. His shoes, which appeared to be wholly unacquainted
with blacking, were, like his pantaloons, two or three sizes too
large for him, making it necessary for him to shuffle along
ungracefully.
It was now ten o'clock in the morning. Two hours had elapsed
since Filippo, or Phil, as I shall call him, for the benefit of
my readers unfamiliar with Italian names, had left the miserable
home in Crosby Street, where he and forty other boys lived in
charge of a middle-aged Italian, known as the padrone. Of this
person, and the relations between him and the boys, I shall
hereafter speak. At present I propose to accompany Phil.
Though he had wandered about, singing and playing, for two hours,
Phil had not yet received a penny. This made him somewhat
uneasy, for he knew that at night he must carry home a
satisfactory sum to the padrone, or he would be brutally beaten;
and poor Phil knew from sad experience that this hard taskmaster
had no mercy in such cases.
The block in which he stood was adjacent to Fifth Avenue, and was
lined on either side with brown-stone houses.
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