“No telling when I’ll need them,” he thought, “and I want to be in good shape to look for work.” Then another thought came to him. He could not very well go about looking for a job carrying his suit case. Besides, it would look suspicious, in case there was any alarm here for him. He saw a notice at the refreshment stand to the effect that valises and small parcels would be checked at the rate of ten cents a day.
“That will suit me,” decided Jack, and he handed over his large valise, receiving for it a paper check. “Now I can travel about better,” he added.
Jack’s one idea now was to get a place to work. He did not intend to stay permanently in Rudford, but he wanted to earn enough money to take him to some larger place, and that he needed money was very evident, when he looked over his cash and found he had less than a dollar. The railroad ticket had taken the most of his small capital.
Now, whether Jack was not exactly the sort of boy the merchants needed, or whether there was already a plentiful supply of lads already in town, or whether there were more boys than there were jobs, Jack did not stop to figure out. The fact was, however, that he tramped about all that morning, asking in a score or more of places for work, without getting it.
“Well, it isn’t going to be as easy as I though it was,” he said to himself. “Tramping about makes me hungry. I’ve got to eat. I’d better tackle the stuff I brought from the professor’s house. The longer I keep that, the staler it’ll get, until I won’t be able to eat it after a while. There’s enough for dinner and supper, and for breakfast. We’ll see what turns up to-morrow.”
He found a secluded spot, where he dined frugally on the bread and meat, and the piece of pie. He washed it down with some cool water from a street fountain. But, oh how he wished he could have an ice cream soda!
Signs advertising the various flavors of that drink seemed to stare at him from every drug store and confectionery shop window, and, as it was warm from the sun, Jack longed for the cool beverage.
“But I can’t afford it,” he decided. “Five cents will get me a cup of coffee in the morning, and I’ll need that more than I need a soda now.”
In the afternoon he resumed his search for work, but with no success. Once, as he was passing a printing shop, he saw displayed that magical sign: “Boy Wanted.”
“I see you want a boy,” he remarked, as he went in. “I’d like to get the job.”