on the wharf from which it was to
start. Already a considerable amount of freight was lying on the
wharf ready to be loaded. Joe made his way to the office.

"Well, boy, what's your business?" inquired a stout man with a red
face, who seemed to be in charge.

"Is this the office of the California steamer, sir?"

"Yes."

"What is the lowest price for passage?"

"A hundred dollars for the steerage."

When Joe heard this his heart sank within him. It seemed to be the
death-blow to his hopes. He had but fifty dollars, or thereabouts,
and there was no chance whatever of getting the extra fifty.

"Couldn't I pay you fifty dollars now and the rest as soon as I can
earn it in California?" he pleaded.

"We don't do business in that way."

"I'd be sure to pay it, sir, if I lived," said Joe. "Perhaps you
think I am not honest."

"I don't know whether you are or not," said the agent cavalierly.
"We never do business in that way."

Joe left the office not a little disheartened.

"I wish it had been a hundred dollars Aunt Susan left me," he said to
himself.

Joe's spirits were elastic, however. He remembered that Seth had
never given him reason to suppose that the money he had would pay his
passage by steamer. He had mentioned working his passage in a
sailing-vessel round the Horn. Joe did not like that idea so well,
as the voyage would probably last four months, instead of twenty-five
days, and so delay his arrival.

The afternoon slipped away almost without Joe's knowledge. He walked
about, here and there, gazing with curious eyes at the streets, and
warehouses, and passing vehicles, and thinking what a lively place
New York was, and how different life was in the metropolis from what
it had been to him in the quiet country town which had hitherto been
his home. Somehow it seemed to wake Joe up, and excite his ambition,
to give him a sense of power which he had never felt before.

"If I could only get a foothold here," thought Joe, "I should be
willing to work twice as hard as I did on the farm."

This was what Joe thought. I don't say that he was correct. There
are many country boys who make a mistake in coming to the city. They
forsake quiet, comfortable homes, where they have all they need, to
enter some city counting-room, or store, at starvation wages, with,
at best, a very remote prospect of advancement and increased risk of
falling a prey to temptation in some of the many forms which it
assu