He looked all around the car and couldn"t see his own mother, nor a sign of Daddy. Though Sunny Boy did not know it, he had crossed the station platform and taken an uptown train. He was riding away from the hotel as fast as the noisy rumbling subway train could carry him.
"It"s pretty crowded," said Sunny Boy to himself. "Maybe when some more folks get off at the next station, I can see Mother."
But though people got off at the next station and the next, there was no Mother.
Sunny Boy sat quietly. No one, looking at him, would have guessed that he was lost. When the crowd of people began to thin out, he followed a fat man with a big basket to the door and up the steps out into the street.
It was still light enough to see clearly, and Sunny Boy knew that he had never been in this part of New York. There were many small shops on either side of the street and moving picture places with great glaring signs already lit.
"Papers!" a boy on the corner was calling. "Papers!"
As Sunny watched him, several men stepped up and bought papers and ran down the subway steps.
Sunny felt in his pocket. There were two bright pennies there, slipped in by Mother, who always put money in the pocket of each new suit.
Sunny jammed his hat more tightly on his yellow head and walked over to where the newsboy stood.
"Want a paper?" the boy grinned at him in a friendly way. "_World?_ Well, didn"t your father say? How much you got?"
Sunny Boy held out his pennies silently.
The boy whipped a paper from the pack under his arm, folded it neatly and gave it to Sunny, taking his money as he did so.
"You"d better scoot," he advised him kindly. "If your father"s waiting for that paper he"ll think you"re reading it. Hurry up--get a move on!"
Sunny Boy sat down sociably on an old soap box.
"Daddy isn"t waiting," he said.
"Papers! Here you are, sir!" the boy made change quickly with not too clean hands. "Then what do you want a paper for? You can"t read, can you?"
"Well some writing I can," admitted Sunny Boy modestly. "That is, if it"s printed. I thought maybe you"d talk to me."
"Talk to you!" repeated the newsboy. "Say, kid, you ought to be home running errands for supper."
Sunny Boy doubled a small foot under him.
"I got lost," he announced casually.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sunny Boy sat down sociably on an old soap box"]
"In the subway. They pushed me and then I thought I saw mother and it was another lady."
The boy glanced at him sharply.
"You stringing me?" he demanded. "You do look as if you were used to having somebody around with you. Don"t you know where you live?"
"Of course I do," declared Sunny Boy quickly. "I always "member where I live. It"s the Macnapin Hotel."
The newsboy had sold nearly all his papers now and he felt that he could take a little time to question this strange child who sat on the soap box and said he was lost.
"That"s a new one to me," he admitted, when Sunny Boy mentioned the hotel. "Is it in New York?"
"My, yes!" Sunny Boy answered, surprised. "Don"t you know? I know one of the bell-boys."
"Well, how do you get to it?" demanded the newsboy.
Sunny Boy didn"t know.
"Well, then, what"s your name?" said his new friend.
"Sunny Boy," came the prompt answer.
The newsboy laughed.
""Sunny Boy"!" he jeered. "That"s a great name to be lost with. S"pose your folks will put an ad in to-morrow"s papers for a lost child named Sunny Boy?"
Now by this time Sunny was very hungry and tired from his long day at the Park. He was worried, too, and he felt very far away from his daddy and mother. Two big tears gathered in his eyes and ran down his face.
CHAPTER XII
SUNNY BOY IS FOUND
"Oh, I say!" the newsboy"s voice changed instantly. "Don"t cry, kid.
If you say your name is Sunny Boy, all right, it is. And I"ll even have it you live at the Macnapin Hotel, though where that is is more than I know. Quit crying, I tell you; you"re going home along with me."
Sunny Boy continued to stare at him, the tears slowly chasing down his cheeks.
"I want my mother!" he sobbed forlornly.
"All right, all right, I"ll get her for you," promised the distracted older boy. "You leave it to Tim Harrity, and there won"t nothing happen to you. Only quit crying, because folks are beginning to look at you. Come on. I"m through for the night."
Sunny Boy slipped a hot little hand into Tim"s.
"Where we going?" he quavered.
"Home," said Tim Harrity briefly. "When I"m sold out, I go home. You come along now, and don"t talk because I"m trying to figure out what hotel you belong at."
Sunny Boy trotted beside Tim, obediently silent. He was so tired that his feet stumbled, but he plodded on, keeping a tight clutch on his friend"s hand.
Suddenly Tim stopped short and gave a shout.
"I have it!" he cried, snapping his fingers excitedly. "I"ll bet what you"re trying to say is the "McAlpin"! Aren"t you staying at the McAlpin Hotel?"
"Why, yes," admitted Sunny Boy, surprised. "I told you so."