sy job for someone who has had experience in this line to
find employment in a city. Many a bright city chap quits his job in
the evening to be almost certain to pick up a new one the following
morning. But for Joe and Jim, filled as they were with childish dreams
of easy fortune, it was a far different matter, especially while they
had dollars clinking in their jeans, as a boy possessing plenty of loose
change is mighty particular about the employment he accepts, so,
although the lads hunted high and low, from early till late, they could
not find suitable places, and after supper they returned to the "Golden
Rule Hotel" to "roost" again in their bunks, surrounded by those
occupied by the riff-raff of the slums.

[Illustration: "Let's get out of this horrid place," whispered Jim, when
by the unsteady yellow light of the candle he counted five bunks, one
above the other, each of which held a sleeping hobo.]

Joe and Jim were awakened the following morning by the racket the rising
"guests" of the hotel made, and when they reached for their trousers to
dress themselves, they not only found that these had disappeared, but
that their shoes, hats and what proved to be their heaviest loss, their
coats in which they had their purses with every cent that they
possessed, had taken wing during the night from beneath their pillows,
where they had hidden them for safety. They tried to explain their loss
to the other inmates, but instead of receiving sympathy for their
trouble, only malicious grunts and malevolent leers were their reward.

A few moments later the manager, having been apprised of the theft,
entered the dimly lighted quarters, not to search the other bunks for
their stolen property, but merely to console his robbed guests, so they
would not report their loss to the police and cause unpleasant comment
in the papers. While they listened to him they saw only ugly scowls upon
the rum-soaked visages of the other inmates of the place, who had
crowded around and seemed to greatly enjoy their misfortune, and who
broke into shouts of boisterous laughter when the manager explained to
the boys that the golden rule of the "Golden Rule Hotel" had always
read: "Do everybody--before they do you."

[Illustration: decorative element]

CHAPTER VII.

"False Friends."

The manager of the "Golden Rule Hotel" raked up a couple of outfits of
cast-off hobo clothing, and coaxed Joe and Jim into dressing themselves
into these, a