CHAPTER XXV. WITHOUT A PENNY.
There is nothing that makes one feel so helpless as to be without a penny in a strange city. If Jed had had even a dollar he would have felt better.
The fact of his poverty was emphasized when a boy came up to him and asked him to buy a morning paper. Jed instinctively felt in his pocket for a penny, but not even a cent was forthcoming.
"I have no change," he said, by way of excuse.
"I can change a dollar," responded the newsboy, who was more than usually enterprising.
"I wish I could," thought Jed, but he only said, "No, it is no matter."
So he walked along Broadway, fairly well dressed, but, so far as money went, a pauper. Yes, though no longer an inmate of the Scranton poorhouse, he was even poorer than when he was there, for then he had a home, and now he had none.
"I wonder when it is all going to end?" reflected poor Jed despondently. Then his anger was excited when he thought of the unprincipled rascal who had brought him to this pass.