bold movement. After spending a few days at home, he
tied up his spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the
shortest road through the woods that led to the Erie Canal. He was
going to New York, and he was going cheap!

A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest,
brought him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and
after various detentions he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just
in time to see the regular steamboat of the day move out into the
stream. At ten o'clock on the same morning he embarked on board of a
towboat, which required nearly twenty-four hours to descend the river,
and thus afforded him ample time to enjoy the beauty of its shores.

On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of
New York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants. . . .
He had managed his affairs with such strict economy that his journey of
six hundred miles had cost him little more than five dollars, and he
had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis. This sum of
money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital.
There was not a person in all New York, as far as he knew, who had ever
seen him before.

His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really
fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw
upon a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled
him. His round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too
fast for his strength; he stooped a little and walked in a
loose-jointed manner. He was very bashful, and totally destitute of
the power of pushing his way, or arguing with a man who said, "No" to
him. He had brought no letters of recommendation, and had no kind of
evidence to show that he had even learned his trade.

The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap
boarding-house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an
experiment, and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start
homeward while he still had a portion of his money. After walking a
while he went into what looked to him like a low-priced tavern, at the
corner of Wall and Broad streets.

"How much do you charge for board?" he asked the barkeeper, who was
wiping his decanters, and putting his bar in trim for the business of
the day.

The barkeeper gave the stranger a look-over and said to him:

"I guess we're too high for you."

"W