factories on the West Side. The answers were
monotonous. "Full up," they said, or a card at the door or gate
announced that the firm had a "full complement." I felt like a
mendicant. I found myself begging for work in a subservient tone and
manner. In one place, I remember, I said, "For God's sake." The
superintendent laughed and waved us away.

"The harrudest work, for sure, is no worruk at all, at all!" said my
companion, by way of sympathy.

It was mid-afternoon; I was growing desperate with my sense of
failure, and at this point I launched a scheme which had been growing
in my mind for hours.

"Keep close to me now, Tim," I said, and I led him into a drug-store
at the corner of Grand Street and the Bowery.

"Sir," I said to the clerk, "you are not accustomed to giving credit,
I know; but perhaps you might suspend your rule for once and trust a
stranger for a very small sum?"

"What is't?" asked the clerk, with something of a sneer.

"I am hungry and thirsty. I have looked for work since five o'clock,
and have utterly failed to find it. Now I have a scheme; I know it
will work. Oxalic acid eats away rust. If I had five cents' worth, I
could make a dollar an hour--I know I could."

The clerk listened and looked. He was good enough to say that I didn't
talk like a bum, though I looked like one. He inquired anxiously if I
was "off my hook." At last he said: "By ----! I've been on the Bowery
a long time, and haven't been sold once. If you're a skin-game man,
I'll throw up my job!" I got the acid.

Then I played the same game in a tailor-shop for rags and in a
hardware store for some polishing-paste. The stock cost fifteen
cents--on credit.

There used to be a big dry-goods store on the east side of Chatham
Square. It had two immense brass signs.

"Nawthin' doin'," said the man, when I applied for the job of cleaning
them. Nevertheless, I cleaned and polished a square foot of one big
sign. The boss looked at it, and then at Tim and me.

"I'll clean both for a dime," I said.

"Well, go ahead," he said. The Cleaning Company went from store to
store until we had enough money for our bills, a meal, and a surplus
in the treasury.

As we sat down to dinner at "Beefsteak John's," I handed Tim the
surplus, and rather impatiently probed for his acknowledgment of my
victory. I had made good, and wanted all that was due me.

"What do you think of it, Tim?" I asked, with an air of satisfaction
and confidence.

"