were working, we applied. We
went to the stevedores on the East Side, but they were all "full up."
"For God's sake," I said to some of them, but I was brushed aside with
a wave of the hand. I never felt so like a beggar in my life. Tim
trotted at my heels, encouraging me with whimsical Irish phrases, one
of which I remember--

"Begorra, mister, the hardest work for sure is no work at all, at
all!"

In the middle of the afternoon, I began to get disturbed; then I
decided to try a scheme I had worked over for hours. "Keep close to
me, now, Tim," I said, as I led him to a drugstore at the corner of
Grand Street and the Bowery.

"Sir," I said to the clerk, "you are unaccustomed to giving credit, I
know; but perhaps you might suspend your rule for once and trust us
to the amount of five cents?"

"You don't talk like a bum," he said, "but you look like one."

I thanked him for the compliment to my language, but insisted on my
request.

"Well, what is it?" asked the clerk with somewhat of a sneer.

"I am hungry and thirsty. I have looked for work all day and have
utterly failed to find it. Now I have a scheme and I know it will
work. Oxalic acid eats away rust. If I had five cents' worth, I could
earn a dollar--I know I could."

He looked curiously at me for a moment, and said with an oath:

"By--! I've been on the Bowery a good many years and haven't been sold
once. If you're a skin-game man, I'll throw up my job!"

I got the acid. I played the same game in a tailor-shop for five
cents' worth of rags. Then I went to a hardware store on the Square
and got credit for about ten cents' worth of brickdust and paste. I
took Tim by the arm and led him across the west side of Chatham
Square. There used to be a big drygoods store on the east side of the
Square, with large plate-glass windows, and underneath the windows,
big brass signs.

"Nothing doing," said the floorwalker, as I asked for the job of
cleaning them; nevertheless, when he turned his back, I dropped on my
knees and cleaned a square foot--did it inside of a minute.

"Say, boss," I said, "look here! I'm desperately hard up. I want to
make money, and I want to make it honestly. I will clean that entire
sign for a nickle."

It was pity that moved him to give me the job, and when it was
completed, I offered to do the other one. "All right," he said; "go
ahead."

"But this one," I said, "will cost you a dime."

"Why a nickle for this one and a dime for th