Before long Jack Ogden stood before the desk of the "Mercantile Agency" to which he had been directed, answering questions and registering his name. He had paid a fee of one dollar, and had made the office-clerk laugh by his confidence.
"You seem to think you can take hold of nearly anything," he said. "Well, your chance is as good as anybody's. Some men prefer boys from the country, even if they can't give references."
"When do you think you can get me a place?" asked Jack.
"Can't tell. We've only between four hundred and five hundred on the books now; and sometimes we get two or three dozen fixed in a day."
"Five hundred!" exclaimed Jack, with a clouding face. "Why, it may be a month before my turn comes!"
"A month?" said the clerk. "Well, I hope not much longer, but it may be. I wouldn't like to promise you anything so soon as that."
Jack went out of that place with yet another idea concerning "business in the city," but he again began to make inquiries for himself. It was the weariest kind of work, and at last he was heartily sick of it.
"I've done enough for one day," he said to himself. "I've been into I don't know how many stores. I know more about it than I did this morning."
There was no doubt of that. Jack had been getting wiser all the while; and he did not even look so rural as when he set out. He was really beginning to get into city ways, and he was thinking hard and fast.
The first thing he did, after reaching the Hotel Dantzic, was to go up to his room. He felt as if he would like to talk with his sister Mary, and so he sat down and wrote her a long letter.