"Humph! Are you the boy?"
"I am a boy, and would like a place," answered Ben.
The clerk picked his teeth languidly with a wooden toothpick which he had brought from the cheap restaurant where he had taken his breakfast.
"Are you from the country?"
"Yes, sir."
"How long have you been in the city?"
"I arrived yesterday."
"Then you don't know your way round New York?"
"No; but I would soon learn."