A KINDLY ACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16026, 18 September 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

A KINDLY ACT.

NEWSBOY'S DREAM OF LUXURY.

A chabjoxg story of a wounded officer's kindly thought for a poor, unkempt newsboy comes from Kingston-on-Thames. The rain was falling in a pitiless downpour, and the little fellow was at ' his wits' end to find customers for his stock of newspapers. Most people bad sought convenient shelter, but the diminutive newsvendor was compelled to be in the open, for all that his boots were practically soleless and his knickers a fine collection of rents. . . ■ "A- dreary, _ bedraggled figure, - he -was almost the sole occupant of the marketplace,' when . up drove an army officer recently returned from the front, in a luxuriously-appointed motor-car. -After buying papers from the street vendor the officer asked the boy if he would like to go for' a motor ride. 1 Beyond His Dreams. < \. . . The little chap was too abashed to reply, such a thing never, apparently, having entered into the range of his possibilities ; but with kindly encouragement the boy. who was about eight or nine years old, said he would like such a ride, his eyes sparkling with joy at the thought. The officer then lifted the little newsboy <yn to the seat'beside him, and took him on a joy-ride in the car around Kingston and Snrbiton.

In the meantime the officer's friend had taken over the .boy's stock of papers, and these in quite professional fashion he disposed of at enhanced prices amongst the patrcvns at one of the principal hotels in the market-place. When the boy returned from his joy-ride, he was overjoyed to find all his papers sold for him and to receive from his erstwhile host and his friend not only his papers back as returns, but a sum for their sale that, represented quite a small fortune for the boy, and will -no doubt go far to get him a strong pair of boots and other things the poor little mite so stands in need of.