“I guess this is yours, ain’t it?” he asked. “It was in your chair.” “Eh? Yes, of course it is. Must have dropped out of my pocket.” He seemed quite put out about it and scowled at the purse before he put it away. “Most annoying.” He shot a fleeting glance at the boy. “Much obliged to you; very kind.” Then he plunged off the sidewalk, dodged a dray, and narrowly escaped the fender of a trolley car. Tom smiled as he returned to the lunch room. “Bet you,” he reflected, “he’s one of the sort that’s always in a hurry and never gets anywhere!” His absence, as short as it had been, had lost him his seat, and he was obliged to penetrate to the rear of the room and perch himself on a stool in front of one of the long counters. There, however, he feasted royally on beef stew, bread and butter, pie and milk, and managed to consume a full half-hour doing it. To be sure, he was still hungry when he had finished the last crumb, for he had had nothing since breakfast at seven o’clock and it was now well after one, and he had been on the go all the morning. But he felt a heap better and a lot more hopeful, and as he left the lunch room he was ready to believe his search for employment ended, that Mr. Cummings’s reply would be favourable. A contented stomach is a great incentive to cheerful thoughts. CHAPTER II AND FINDS IT The clock in a nearby steeple showed Tom that there still remained nearly ten minutes of waiting, and so he joined the northward-bound throng and idled along the street, pausing now and then to examine the contents of a store window. A jeweller’s display held him for several minutes. He wondered whether he would ever be rich enough to possess one of the handsome gold watches so temptingly displayed on black velvet. “They ain’t--aren’t--any thicker’n a buckwheat cake,” marvelled Tom. “Don’t seem as if there was room inside them for the wheels and things!” Just then he caught sight of himself in a mirror, took off his straw hat, and smoothed down a rebellious lock of red-brown hair. Then he replaced his hat, studied the result in the mirror, and nodded approvingly. A lady at the other side of the window smiled at the pantomime, and then, catching Tom’s glance in the mirror, smiled at Tom. Tom flushed and hurried away. “Guess she thought I was a fool,” he muttered. “Standing there and primping like a girl!”