days that followed. I had taken to peddling
books, an illustrated Dickens issued by the Harpers, but I barely earned
enough by it to keep life in us and a transient roof over our heads. I call
it transient because it was rarely the same two nights together, for causes
which I have explained. In the day Bob made out rather better than I. He
could always coax a supper out of the servant at the basement gate by his
curvetings and tricks, while I pleaded vainly and hungrily with the
mistress at the front door. Dickens was a drug in the market. A curious
fatality had given me a copy of "Hard Times" to canvass with. I think no
amount of good fortune could turn my head while it stands in my bookcase.
One look at it brings back too vividly that day when Bob and I had gone,
desperate and breakfastless, from the last bed we might know for many days,
to try to sell it and so get the means to keep us for another twenty-four
hours.

It was not only breakfast we lacked. The day before we had had only a crust
together. Two days without food is not good preparation for a day's
canvassing. We did the best we could. Bob stood by and wagged his tail
persuasively while I did the talking; but luck was dead against us, and
"Hard Times" stuck to us for all we tried. Evening came and found us down
by the Cooper Institute, with never a cent. Faint with hunger, I sat down
on the steps under the illuminated clock, while Bob stretched himself at my
feet. He had beguiled the cook in one of the last houses we called at, and
his stomach was filled. From the corner I had looked on enviously. For me
there was no supper, as there had been no dinner and no breakfast.
To-morrow there was another day of starvation. How long was this to last?
Was it any use to keep up a struggle so hopeless? From this very spot I had
gone, hungry and wrathful, three years before when the dining Frenchmen for
whom I wanted to fight thrust me forth from their company. Three wasted
years! Then I had one cent in my pocket, I remembered. To-day I had not
even so much. I was bankrupt in hope and purpose. Nothing had gone right;
nothing would ever go right; and, worse, I did not care. I drummed moodily
upon my book. Wasted! Yes, that was right. My life was wasted, utterly
wasted.

A voice hailed me by name, and Bob sat up looking attentively at me for his
cue as to the treatment of the owner of it. I recognized in him the
principal of the telegraph school where I had gone until my