Jim entered school at once. In his own way, he was a brilliant student. He had the sort of mind that instinctively grasps fundamental principles, and this faculty, combined with a certain mental obstinacy and independence, made him at once the pride and terror of his teachers. He was a very firm rock on which to depend for exhibition purposes, but whenever he asked questions they were of a searching variety that made his teachers long to box his ears. It was rather a pity that all Jim's spare moments when not in school had to be spent in janitor service. He missed the companionship of the boys in the public school which, in America, is an almost indispensable part of a boy's education. In his adult life he must meet and understand men and methods of every nationality. New York public schools are veritable congresses of nations and a boy who plans to go into business gets far more than mere book learning from them. Jim's poverty cut him out of athletics and clubs so that all his inherent New England tendency to mental aloofness would have been vastly increased if it had not been for his summer vacations. The first day of his summer vacation, Jim applied for a job. A steel skyscraper was being erected in 42nd street and Jim asked the superintendent of construction for work. The superintendent looked at the lank lad, who now, fifteen, would have appeared eighteen were it not for his smooth, almost childish face. "What kind of work, young fella?" asked the Boss. "Anything to start with," replied Jim, "until we see what I can do." "You're as thin as a lath. Ye can get down there with Derrick No. 2 and get some muscle laid on you. A dollar fifty a day is the best I can do for you. Get along now." Jim's brain reeled with joy at the size of his prospective income. He nodded, pulled off his coat, leaving it in the superintendent's office and found his way to Derrick No. 2. The structure was a big one, so big that the exigencies of New York traffic were forcing the company to build in sections. A steel frame nearly eighteen stories high was nearly finished at one edge, while blasting for another portion of the foundation, five stories deep, was going on at the other edge.