ing him out of scrapes, his connections had refused further assistance; and, leaving the Army, he had come out to “the States” with the idea of roughing it on the Western plains. Still misfortune had dogged his steps. A fall down a hatchway on the voyage out had hopelessly lamed him, and he had been compelled to ward off starvation by obtaining his present inglorious berth.
His work—adding up columns of figures entered from the sales-tickets—was quite irresponsible, and he was paid accordingly. He drew eight dollars a week, of which five went to his boarding-house keeper.
Limping up Street, he turned into the Bowery, intending to take his usual homeward route across the big bridge into Brooklyn. Unable to afford a street-car, he walked to and from the store daily, and it was one of his few amusements to study the cosmopolitan life of the teeming and sordid thoroughfare through which his way led.
He was still chuckling over the discomfiture of the tame detective, when his eye was caught by a label in a cheap boot-store. “Three dollars the pair,” ran the legend, which drew a rueful sigh from one who had paid—and alas!
[11]
