“You must have got it from that girl in the water, when you helped her out.”

“That’s so!  Wait here till I come back!” and with this exclamation the lad sprang up and darted outdoors.

He was gone but a short time, when he returned.

“I’ve been down to the ferry-house to see whether I could find the woman and give her back her jewelry; but nobody there knows anything about her, and I’ll have to keep it till I learn who she is.”

On looking at the locket the boys agreed that it was the likeness of the girl that had so narrowly escaped drowning.  They admired it a long time, after which Tom carefully put it away, and they finished their supper.

The supper finished, the boys sat in the hot room until Tom’s clothing was fully dried, during which process the two were urged to drink fully a score of times, Tom being assured by several that the only way to escape a dangerous cold was to swallow a good supply of gin.

Like sensible lads they steadfastly refused, as they had never tasted spirituous liquors, and never intended to.

Finally, at a late hour, they retired to their humble room, where they were speedily asleep.

On the morrow it was agreed that they would make this place their headquarters, while they looked up something to do.  They could separate and spend the day in the search, and return to their lodging-house after dark, both having fixed the location in their minds, and there being little excuse for losing their way, even in such a vast city.

Breakfast was eaten early, and the friends separated, not expecting to see each other till dusk again.  Both were in high spirits, for in the clear sunshine of the winter’s morning the world looked bright and radiant to them.  The hurry and rush of Broadway, the crowds constantly surging forward, each one seemingly intent on his own business, the constant roll and rumble of trade,—­all so different from the more sedate city they had left behind.

All these were so new and novel to the lads, threading their way through the great metropolis, that they forgot their real business for a time, and feasted their eyes and ears for hours.

Finally, they roused themselves and went to work.  The experience of the two, for a time at least, was very similar.  Tom first stopped in a dry-goods house, and asked whether they could give him anything to do.  A short “No” was the reply, and the proprietor instantly turned his back upon him.  Then he tried a drug-store, where he was treated in the same manner.  In a hat and cap store, the rotund clerk tried to chaff him, but he didn’t make much of a success of it.  In answer to his question, the clerk replied that he didn’t need a boy just then, but when he did he would send his carriage around to the Metropolitan for him.

When Tom timidly introduced his errand to an old gentleman in spectacles, as he sat at his desk in a large shipping-office, the old fellow exclaimed in an awed voice,—­