Ragged Dick

Dick recalls the promise he had made the day before to give fifteen cents of change back to his earlier customer, Mr. Greyson. Mr. Greyson is pleasantly surprised by Dick’s scrupulous honesty, noting that he is better than some businessmen in that respect. When Mr. Greyson finds out that Dick has not read the Bible, he invites him to attend his Sunday school class, where he will try to help the boy. Dick eagerly assents, telling himself, “you’re getting up in the world. You’ve got money invested, and are goin’ to attend church by partic’lar invitation, on Fifth Avenue” (133). Dick feels hopeful that he is “emerging from the world in which he had hitherto lived, into a new atmosphere of respectability (133).

Unusually successful in earning money this day, Dick sympathizes with a timid, younger bootblack at the restaurant where he dines because “our hero had a certain chivalrous feeling which would not allow him to bully or disturb a younger and weaker boy than himself” (133). Dick’s acquaintance, Fosdick, can only afford to order bread and butter, but Dick generously treats him to a full meal. When Dick discovers that Fosdick plans to sleep in a doorway, hoping the police will not disturb him, Dick invites him to share his room.