le of the day, and a fifteen-cent
ticket to the pit of the Old Bowery theatre in the evening, he felt
happy. He was fairly adrift in the streets of the great city, and his
future prospects did not look very brilliant. It is hardly necessary
to say that in a moral point of view he had deteriorated rather than
improved. In fact, he was fast developing into a social outlaw, with
no particular scruples against lying or stealing. One thing may be
said in his favor, he never made use of his strength to oppress a
younger boy. On the whole, he was good-natured, and not at all brutal.
He had on one occasion interfered successfully to protect a young boy
from one of greater strength who was beating him. I like to mention
this, because I do not like to have it supposed that Sam was wholly
bad.

We will now advance the story some months, and see what they have done
for Sam.

To begin with, they have not improved his wardrobe. When he first came
to the city he was neatly though coarsely dressed; now his clothes
hang in rags about him, and, moreover, they are begrimed with mud and
grease. His straw hat and he have some time since parted company, and
he now wears a greasy article which he picked up at a second-hand
store in Baxter street for twenty-five cents. If Sam were troubled
with vanity, he might feel disturbed by his disreputable condition;
but as he sees plenty of other boys of his own class no better
dressed, he thinks very little about it. Such as they are, his clothes
are getting too small for him, for Sam has grown a couple of inches
since he came to the city.

Such was our hero's appearance when one day he leaned against a
building on Broadway, and looked lazily at the vehicles passing,
wishing vaguely that he had enough money to buy a square meal. A
Broadway stage was passing at the time. A small man, whose wrinkled
face indicated that he was over sixty, attempted to descend from the
stage while in motion. In some way he lost his footing, and, falling,
managed to sprain his ankle, his hat falling off and rolling along on
the pavement.

Sam, who was always on the lookout for chances, here saw an opening.
He dashed forward, lifted the old gentleman to his feet, and ran after
his hat, and restored it.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"I think I have sprained my ankle. Help me upstairs to my office,"
said the old man.

He pointed to a staircase leading up from the sidewalk.

"All right," said Sam. "Lean on me."