n't yer get a tuck-out for a bob!
Oh, no, I should think not! Well, what shall it be? I knows the way
out to Whitechapel and to Clerkenwell, so whichever yer likes I can
show yer."

"If Clerkenwell's the nearest we may as well try that first," George
said, "and I shall be much obliged to you for showing the way."

The two boys spent the whole day in going from workshop to workshop
for employment; but the answers to his application were unvarying:
either he was too young or there was no place vacant. George took the
disappointment quietly, for he had made up his mind that he would have
difficulty in getting a place; but Bill became quite angry on behalf
of his companion.

"This is worse nor the market," he said. "A chap can pick up a few
coppers there, and here we have been a-tramping about all day and aint
done nothing."

Day after day George set out on his quest, but all was without
success. He and Bill still slept in the loft, and after the first day
he took to getting up at the same time as his companion, and going out
with him to try and pick up a few pence from the men with the
market-carts. Every other morning they were able to lie later, as
there were only regular marketdays three mornings a week.

On market mornings he found that he earned more than Bill, his better
clothes giving him an advantage, as the men were more willing to trust
their carts and rugs to the care of a quiet, respectable-looking boy
than to that of the arabs who frequented the Garden. But all that was
earned was laid out in common between the two boys, and George found
himself seldom obliged to draw above a few pence on his private stock.
He had by this time told the Shadow exactly how much money he had, and
the boy, seeing the difficulty that George found in getting work, was
most averse to the store being trenched upon, and always gave his vote
against the smallest addition to their ordinary fare of bread and
cheese being purchased, except from their earnings of the day. This
George felt was the more creditable on Bill's part, inasmuch as the
latter had, in deference to his prejudices, abstained from the petty
thefts of fruit with which before he had seasoned his dry crusts.

George had learned now what Bill knew of his history, which was little
enough. He supposed he had had a father, but he knew nothing of him;
whether he had died, or whether he had cut away and left mother, Bill
had no idea. His mother he remembered well, though