The air in his cell-like room was rather close, and he did not go to sleep readily. There were so many things to think about--the work he had to find as soon as possible, the clothes that must be bought for Dora, for he wanted her to dress as well as her new friends. He decided to ask Mrs. McGwire to help him make those purchases. As for the work, he was sure he could find a job at good wages, for he had already looked over the "Help wanted" advertisements in a morning paper and written down the addresses of several firms of contractors and builders who were in need of skilled labor. After a long while he fell asleep, and when he waked in the morning he heard Dora moving about in her room. "Kid!" he called out, "come here!" "All right, brother John," she answered, and he was sure that he heard her tittering in a suppressed way. Wondering what could be the cause of her merriment so early in the day, he called out again. This time she answered with a rippling laugh: "Wait a minute, can't you?" Ten minutes passed, and then she appeared in the doorway. She had on a really attractive blue-serge suit that fitted her quite well. Indeed, with her hair arranged as Betty McGwire wore hers, she looked like some strange, new little girl who bore but a slight resemblance to the unkempt Dora he had known from her babyhood. "I was going to surprise you," she said, laughing freely over his stare of astonishment. "It is a dress that was too small for Betty and too big for Minnie. Mrs. McGwire gave it to me last night while you were out. She has two or three others which she says will be out of style before Minnie comes on, and will go to the ragman if I don't take them." "It looks all right," John said, admiringly. "It will do till we can get some new ones." CHAPTER XXXVIII His mind greatly relieved by having such good custodians for Dora, John fared forth immediately after breakfast in search of work. No one could possibly have been more ignorant of the intricate ways of the great city than he, and yet he managed to find the office of the first advertiser on his list without overmuch delay or difficulty. "Pilcher & Reed, Contractors and Builders," as their sign read, had their offices over a carpenter's shop in East Thirty-third Street near the river. The house was a red-brick structure which in former days had been a residence. The contractors occupied all of the second floor, the two floors above being used by certain Jewish makers of shirt-waists and skirts, and an Italian establishment for the dry-cleaning of clothing.