nd bread for
breakfast, and the poor lad didn't know where his next meal would
come from. As he went out, the clerk in the filthy office of the
lodging-house told him that he needn't come back any more.

"Why did you tell him that?" asked the fat man with a sly face.

"Because I went through his clothes last night when he was asleep, and
he had only six cents in his pocket. We don't want no starvin' brats
around here, to bring the Gerry Society down upon us."

It was well that Archie didn't know his pockets had been searched while
he was asleep, or his faith in human nature would have been more
shaken than ever before. He had not suspected that the men in this
lodging-house might be dishonest.

"They are poor," he said to himself when he saw them first, "but they
may be good men for all that."

After a slender meal, Archie found a library where he looked over the
advertising columns of the morning papers, trying to find some position
open which he thought he might fill. There were several advertisements
calling for office boys, and all these he made note of, and then as he
looked down the page he noticed that a boy was wanted in a restaurant to
wash dishes. He decided that if he didn't succeed in getting a place
as office boy, he might get the restaurant place. He knew that in a
restaurant he would be likely at least to get enough to eat.

For two hours he called at addresses of men who wanted office boys, but
at every place he was turned away. "We have already hired one," some
of them said, and others told him that they never took any boys in
the office who were living away from home. Some asked him for
recommendations, and when he had none, they looked at him and told him
"good morning." It was all terribly discouraging, and with every minute
Archie was wishing more and more that he were back home again. Somehow
the city seemed different now from what it had been when Uncle Henry
was with him. Everything was less bright, and the things he had been
delighted with before were less interesting now.

Finally, he entered a large, handsome suite of rooms, in one of the
great sky-scrapers, and was shown into a very elegant private office.
There he found an old gentleman seated in a great easy chair, looking
over papers, and keeping one eye upon a buzzing instrument at his side
which seemed to be spitting out long strips of paper, like a magician
in a side-show. The man looked up as he entered, and cleared his throat.