deration. For the first time in
his life Dick possessed two suits of clothes. Should he put on the
clothes Frank had given him, or resume his old rags?

Now, twenty-four hours before, at the time Dick was introduced to
the reader's notice, no one could have been less fastidious as to
his clothing than he. Indeed, he had rather a contempt for good
clothes, or at least he thought so. But now, as he surveyed the
ragged and dirty coat and the patched pants, Dick felt ashamed of
them. He was unwilling to appear in the streets with them. Yet, if
he went to work in his new suit, he was in danger of spoiling it,
and he might not have it in his power to purchase a new one. Economy
dictated a return to the old garments. Dick tried them on, and
surveyed himself in the cracked glass; but the reflection did not
please him.

"They don't look 'spectable," he decided; and, forthwith taking them
off again, he put on the new suit of the day before.

"I must try to earn a little more," he thought, "to pay for my room,
and to buy some new clo'es when these is wore out."

He opened the door of his chamber, and went downstairs and into the
street, carrying his blacking-box with him.

It was Dick's custom to commence his business before breakfast;
generally it must be owned, because he began the day penniless, and
must earn his meal before he ate it. To-day it was different. He had
four dollars left in his pocket-book; but this he had previously
determined not to touch. In fact he had formed the ambitious
design of starting an account at a savings' bank, in order to
have something to fall back upon in case of sickness or any other
emergency, or at any rate as a reserve fund to expend in clothing or
other necessary articles when he required them. Hitherto he had been
content to live on from day to day without a penny ahead; but the
new vision of respectability which now floated before Dick's mind,
owing to his recent acquaintance with Frank, was beginning to
exercise a powerful effect upon him.

In Dick's profession as in others there are lucky days, when
everything seems to flow prosperously. As if to encourage him in
his new-born resolution, our hero obtained no less than six jobs
in the course of an hour and a half. This gave him sixty cents,
quite abundant to purchase his breakfast, and a comb besides. His
exertions made him hungry, and, entering a small eating-house he
ordered a cup of coffee and a beefsteak. To this he added a co