A man with a dressing robe over his suit appears in the doorway. “Hello? I was hoping for a service. Tried to stop by earlier, but there was such a rush.” He puts on his glasses and peers at us. I wonder if he can see me trembling, or if he notices the flush on my cheeks.

I clear my throat. “Er, sorry, guv’nor.” Mum’s accent slips out. “We’re just tidyin’ up here.” I grab the drape and shake it out. Bo, catching on, clutches a broom. “The barber’ll be back tomorrow, and he’ll clean you up right as rain.”

The man shakes his head, which is fuzzy like a summer squash. There’s hardly anything left to feed the clippers, but maybe when you’re rich, you don’t need a reason to spend money. “Ah well, I’ll try back tomorrow, then. Say, you must know those Chinese boys doing the acrobatics tomorrow. It’s the talk of the Dining Saloon.”

“Right. It’ll be one helluva show. Not to be missed. Tell your mates.”

“Will do. Good night, gentlemen.” And the door closes.

Energized by our narrow escape, we quickly finish sweeping. I slip a deck of cards and an orange kerchief into my pocket, then leave a whole shilling in the barber’s tip jar, triple what the items cost.

“Close shave,” whispers Bo as we hustle back to Room 14.

Once there, I place the kerchief and the cards on the lads’ beds.

“Wink will like the scarf,” Bo says.

“I hope so. What happened to him? He doesn’t want to talk about his parents.”

He leans against a bedpost, and a dent appears between his eyes. “Wink’s mother died when he was born. His father beat him with a stick many times. He would climb trees to stay out of his father’s way.”

I grimace. A sudden urge to protect Wink makes me glance toward his seabag, the shabbiest of the lot. All children need their mothers, even ones they never met.

Can I take the lads to America? Perhaps if Lady Liberty opens her arms to me, her embrace will be wide enough to fit two more.

“You have left this room many times in the last second,” says Bo.

“How do you think Wink and Olly would feel about going to America with me? I could ‘adopt’ them, like sons, or at least like little brothers.”

His star-like dimple appears on the smooth plane of his cheek. “I think Wink would follow you anywhere, and where he goes, Olly goes.”