THE STORY OF AN ARAB.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 415, 11 October 1875, Page 4

THE STORY OF AN ARAB.

The story of a Cincinnati newsboy who found a pocketbook, containing 100 dols, and returned it to the owner with contents intact, reached Philadelphia in good season, and was productive of a considerable sensation among the street Arabs. One small boy was so affected by it that he straightway determined to see that Cincinnati boy, and go him seventeen or eighteen better. He took another small boy into his confidence, and the test of probity of character was carried into effect. Boy No 2 dropped a well padded pocketbook, which boy No 1, following close behind, picked up. Then with a look on his face that would have done honour to Benjamin Franklin, the honest little fellow walked up to an old gentleman who was passing by, extended the pocketbook, and with trembling voice exclaimed, ‘ Take it, sir, it is yours. You dropped it just now. My mother and seven little brothers are starving, but I cannot keep it, sir, for it don’t belong to me. ” The old gentleman looked at the boy, then pulled out his spectacles for a better sight. He could not sufficiently admire the wan visage of the little street wanderer, illuminated as it was with a glow of goodness and honesty. He patted the boy on the head, and pulling a sdol bill from his pocket handed it to him, saying, “ Boy, you will grow to be a great man. Take this money for your starving family, and always remember honesty is the best of policy. ” Then the old gentleman skurred into the nearest lager beer saloon and opened his pocket-book, when he began to dance around and call heaven and earth to witness that if he ever encountered that boy again he would flay him alive. And he continued to orate until a policeman was called to arrest him as a lunatic, and the only excuse he could offer for his conduct was that a small boy had robbed him of five dollars by giving him a pocket-book filled with old paper.