"I guess your customers all had healthy appetites to-day," said Sam. "Bring on something or other, and mind you bring enough of it."
A plate of rice-pudding was set before him, and speedily appropriated. He tried to get a second plate, but his application was unsuccessful. He was given to understand that he was entitled to only one plate, and was forced to rise from the table not wholly satisfied.
CHAPTER XXVII. — CONCLUSION.
Sam did not retain his new position long. A week later he was dismissed. Though no reason was assigned, the proprietor probably thought it better to engage a boy with a smaller appetite. But Sam was by no means discouraged. He was more self-reliant than when nearly a year before he entered the city, and more confident of rubbing along somehow. If he could not sell papers, he could black boots. If wholly without capital, he could haunt the neighborhood of the piers, and seek employment as a baggage-smasher.
For the next two years it will be unnecessary to detail Sam's experiences. They did not differ materially from those of other street-boys,—now a day of plenty, now of want, now a stroke of luck, which made him feel rich as a millionnaire, now a season of bad fortune. Day by day, and week by week, his recollections of his country home became more vague, and he could hardly realize that he had ever lived anywhere else than in the streets of New York. It was at this time that the unexpected encounter with Deacon Hopkins brought back the memories of his early life, and led him to contrast them curiously with his present experiences. There did not seem much for Sam to be proud of, ragged vagabond as he was; but for all that he looked down upon his former self with ineffable contempt.
"What a greenhorn I was when I first came to the city!" he reflected. "How easy I was took in! I didn't know nothin' about life then. How sick I was when I smoked my first cigar! Now, I can smoke half a dozen, one after the other, only I can't raise the stamps to buy 'em. How I fooled the deacon, though!" and Sam laughed in hearty enjoyment of the joke. "I wonder what'll he say of me when he gets back."
Sam plunged his hands deep down into his pockets. There was nothing to hinder, for, as usual, they were empty. He had spent the small amount obtained from the deacon, and he was just even with the world. He had neither debts nor assets. He had only daily recurring wants, and these he was not always able to supply.
It was in the afternoon of the day made memorable by his interview with the deacon that another adventure befell Sam. As it exhibits him in a more favorable light than usual, I am glad to chronicle it.