s the letters could not have appeared larger. With the
brilliancy of a search light they seemed to ask "Who are you and how are
you fixed?" I responded by "staring fate in the face," and going up to
the bar asked for a cigar. How much? Ten cents. I had sixty cents when I
landed; had paid fifty for trunk drayage, and I was now a moneyless
man--hence my secret.

Would there be strict enforcement of conditions mentioned in that
ominous card. I was unacquainted with the Bohemian "song and dance"
parlance in such extremities, and wondered would letting my secret come
out let a dinner come in. Possibly, I may have often been deceived when
appealed to, but that experience has often been fruitful to friendless
hunger.

Finally the bell rang, and a polite invitation from the landlord placed
me at the table. There is nothing so helpful to a disconsolate man as a
good dinner. It dissipates melancholy and stimulates persistency. Never
preach high moral rectitude or the possibilities of industry to a hungry
man. First give him something to eat, then should there be a vulnerable
spot to such admonition you will succeed. If not, he is an incorrigible.

After dinner I immediately went out, and after many attempts to seek
employment of any kind, I approached a house in course of construction
and applied to the contractor for work. He replied he did not need help.
I asked the price of wages. Ten dollars a day. I said you would much
oblige me by giving me, if only a few days' work, as I have just
arrived. After a few moments thought, during which mayhap charity and
gain held conference, which succumbed, it is needless to premise, for we
sometimes ascribe selfish motives to kindly acts, he said that if I
choose to come for nine dollars a day I might. It is unnecessary for me
to add that I chose to come.

When I got outside the building an appalling thought presented itself;
whoever heard of a carpenter announcing himself ready for work without
his tools. A minister may be without piety, a lawyer without clients, a
politician impolitic, but a carpenter without tools, never! It would be
prima facia evidence of an imposter. I went back and asked what tools I
must bring upon the morrow; he told me and I left. But the tools, the
tools, how was I to get them. My only acquaintance in the city was my
landlord. But prospects were too bright to reveal to him my secret. I
wended my way to a large tent having an assortment of hardware and was
show