“You try it, and see if you can’t. I’ll bet a dollar you can; and, if you don’t do it in half a minute, my right boot will help you on your way.” It was of no use to argue the case with such a man as that; and the poor boy left the little hotel sadder than he had ever been before in his life. He had no cap on his head; but no one seemed to notice the fact. He was near the steamboat-landings; and presently he saw a ragged boy get a job to carry a bag belonging to a traveller. He took the suggestion, and, going nearer to the pier, he appealed to every man and woman he met for a job to carry baggage, and at last he was so lucky as to get one. He left the bag at a hotel near Broadway; and the traveller gave him ten cents, with which he considered himself richly paid. With the money in his hand,--for he dared not trust it in his pocket,--he hastened back to the cheap hotel. The landlord gave him his cap when he handed him his money. “I thought you would find some money if I kept your cap,” said he. “I have half a mind to keep it to punish you for lying to me, and saying you had no money.” “I made the ten cents carrying a bag for a passenger,” pleaded Wade, as he left the place. He went back to the steamboat-landing to see if he could not get another job. CHAPTER XVIII. A NIGHT ADVENTURE. “Just my luck!” exclaimed Wade, when he was in the street. “Not a single cent left! To think there should be any one in that little mean hotel to take a dollar and thirty-five cents from a poor boy like me!” But it was no use to complain. He had made ten cents that morning, and he might do a large business of this kind. But all the passengers from the steamers had gone to their hotels or elsewhere; and he walked along to one of the large ferries that bring travellers across from the railroads on the Jersey shore. He happened to hit quite a crowd of them, and he began to offer his services. He had spoken to half a dozen, though without success, when three stout fellows came up to him. “Out of this, country!” said one of them, with a threatening demonstration. “If you don’t get out of this, you will get a crack on the sconce.” He could not exactly see how the fellows knew he was from the country; but, as it was a fact, he was not disposed to raise any issue on the question. But he wanted to know by what right they ordered him away from this locality. He thought he had as good right there as they had. “What’s that for?” he asked; and he did not like the idea of fighting three of them as big as himself. “Sure we have the license to carry baggage from this place, and we won’t let the business be taken from us by no countryman,” replied the spokesman of the party. “You have a license! What’s that?” added Wade. “Don’t you know what a license is?” hooted the fellow. “Don’t the city give us the right to carry baggage from this ferry?” “I don’t know. Does it?”