e Agency"
to which he had been directed, answering questions and registering his
name. He had paid a fee of one dollar, and had made the office-clerk
laugh by his confidence.

"You seem to think you can take hold of nearly anything," he said.
"Well, your chance is as good as anybody's. Some men prefer boys from
the country, even if they can't give references."

"When do you think you can get me a place?" asked Jack.

"Can't tell. We've only between four hundred and five hundred on the
books now; and sometimes we get two or three dozen fixed in a day."

"Five hundred!" exclaimed Jack, with a clouding face. "Why, it may be
a month before my turn comes!"

"A month?" said the clerk. "Well, I hope not much longer, but it may
be. I wouldn't like to promise you anything so soon as that."

Jack went out of that place with yet another idea concerning "business
in the city," but he again began to make inquiries for himself. It was
the weariest kind of work, and at last he was heartily sick of it.

"I've done enough for one day," he said to himself. "I've been into I
don't know how many stores. I know more about it than I did this
morning."

There was no doubt of that. Jack had been getting wiser all the while;
and he did not even look so rural as when he set out. He was really
beginning to get into city ways, and he was thinking hard and fast.

The first thing he did, after reaching the Hotel Dantzic, was to go up
to his room. He felt as if he would like to talk with his sister Mary,
and so he sat down and wrote her a long letter.

He told her about his trip, all through, and about his German friends,
and his Sunday; but it was anything but easy to write about Monday's
experiences. He did it after a fashion, but he wrote much more
cheerfully than he felt.

Then he went down to the supper-room for some tea. It seemed to him
that he had ordered almost nothing, but it cost him twenty-five cents.

It would have done him good if he could have known how Mary's thoughts
were at that same hour turning to him.

At home, Jack's father and Mr. Magruder were talking about Jack's land,
arranging about the right of way and what it was worth, while he sat in
his little room in the Hotel Dantzic, thinking over his long, weary day
of snubs, blunders, insults and disappointments.

"Hunting for a place in the city is just the meanest kind of work," he
said at last. "Well, I'll go to bed, and try it again to-morrow."