One morning he did try selling papers, under the tutorship of Dick, but the effort was not a success. By noon he had earned exactly nineteen cents and had sixteen papers still on hand. "I guess you wasn't cut out for a newsboy," said Dick, frankly. "What you want to do is, to get a steady job in a store or office." "Yes, but the jobs are mighty scarce," answered Nat. A week passed, and the country boy could find nothing more to do that was steady. One day he helped a man distribute bills, and on another occasion he carried out packages for a florist, and the two jobs brought him in just a dollar. By this time the soles were worn from his shoes and he had to have them mended. "Making one's way in the city isn't so easy after all," he thought one night, as he sat in his little room, on the edge of the bed. He had been counting up his money and found that he had but a little over four dollars left. "I'll have to give Mrs. Talcott three and a half of that," he continued, "and that will leave me sixty-five cents. I've got to hustle or I'll be high and dry by next week." Nat hustled all of the next week, but without results. In one store the proprietor was unusually harsh to him, and he came back to Mrs. Talcott's house more downcast than ever. "I guess they don't want me in New York after all," he mused. "If I can't get something to do I can't stay here, for Mrs. Talcott can't afford to keep me. I'll have to starve!" He was so disheartened that he did not feel like eating. Immediately after the meal he went to his little room. Then, of a sudden he thought of the letter Paul Hampton had given him. "I may as well open that," he reasoned. "Goodness knows I am short enough of funds, and pretty well discouraged too." The letter was in his pocket, still pinned fast, and he brought it forth and gazed at it speculatively. "It would be just like him to put a five-dollar bill in it," he thought. With his penknife he slit the envelope open, and looked inside. It contained a slip of paper and another slip, of a green color. "A bill, as sure as I'm in this room!" he ejaculated. "I don't suppose it's less than a five, and maybe it's a ten. If he--well I declare!" Nat rushed to the window to look at the bill, and then with a gasp he sank back on the only chair which the little bedroom contained. He could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. The bank bill was one for a hundred dollars. CHAPTER XI WHAT A HUNDRED DOLLARS DID Nat continued to gaze at the bill like one in a dream. He had never seen a greenback that was worth a hundred dollars before, but he had no doubt of its genuineness. "A hundred dollars!" he repeated several times. "Why, it's a small fortune!" Then he began to wonder if Paul Hampton had not made a mistake, and turned to the slip of paper, upon which he found written: