These were mostly at the North End of Boston,
and he soon found that he needed all his
recollections of Bagdad for the purpose of conducting any
conversation with any of the people they knew best. In
a way, however, with a little broken Arabic, a little
broken Hebrew, a great deal of broken China, and many
gesticulations, he made acquaintance with two of their
compatriots, who had, as it seemed, crossed the ocean
with them in the same steerage. That is to say, they
either had or had not; but for many months Mr. Dane was
unable to discover which. Such as they were, however,
they had been sleeping on the outside of the upper attic
of the house in Salutation Alley where these children had
lodged, or not lodged, as the case might be, during the
last few days. When Mr. Dane saw what were called their
lodgings, he did not wonder that they had accepted pot-
luck with him.
It is necessary to explain all this, that the reader
may understand why, on the first night after the arrival
of these two children, the population of the polling-
booth was enlarged by the presence of these two Hebrew
compatriots. And, without further mystery, it may be as
well to state that all four were from a village about
nine hundred and twenty-three miles north of Odessa, in
the southern part of Russia. They had emigrated in a
compulsory manner from that province, first on account of
the utter failure of anything to eat there; second, on
account of a prejudice which the natives of that country
had contracted against the Hebrew race.
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