a moighty avil village, is New York, and ye had better get out of
the same while ye have the money to do it. It isn't a good thing for a lad
to carry a pistol, but I wish ye to kaap the one I lint ye as long as ye
are in danger, which is loikely to be all yer life."

"My money is nearly all gone," replied Tom, "and unless I get at
something pretty soon, I shall have to beg. I would go out of the city
to-morrow if I only had Jim."

"Perhaps it is as well that ye wait where ye are for a few days for him,
spinding yer laisure in looking for a job. I'm a coochman in the employ of
an old rapscallion of a lawyer, who's stingy enough to pick the sugar out
of the teeth of the flies he cotches in his sugar-bowl. I darsn't bring ye
there, but if the worst comes and ye haven't anything to ate, I'll fix it
some way."

The plan was that Tom should stay in this house, visiting the other
morning and evening in quest of information of Jim, while the sunlight
would be spent in hunting for work.

It would be useless to dwell on the particulars of the several days which
followed. Morning and night Tom went over to the other saloon and inquired
after his missing friend. Each time the bartender replied he had not seen
him, and it was his belief that the boy had "skipped the town," as he
expressed it. The little bundle containing all of Jim's possessions was
given to Tom, who took it away with him, leaving word where his friend
could find him.

Dull, leaden despair filled his heart; and, as he paid his board-bill each
evening, he saw with feelings which can scarcely be pictured, the steady
decrease of his pile, until it was close to the vanishing point.

Five days had passed since he entered the new hotel, during which not a
word was heard of Jim, nor had he seen anything of his friend Patsey
McConough.

It seemed to the boy that he had tramped New York from one end to the
other in his search for work, and in not a single instance had he received
the slightest encouragement. Two vocations, it may be said, were open to
him from the beginning; they were to sell newspapers or to black shoes. To
one of Tom's education and former life, it was the most bitter humiliation
to contemplate adopting either of these employments. But the night came
when he felt he must do it or beg.

He naturally preferred the newspaper line to that of polishing shoes, and
he resolve to make his venture early the following morning.

Tom was unusually strong and