As Dennis looked up and down this busy thoroughfare, with its thousands speeding oppositely in preoccupied interest, as if all that was vital and worthy was to be found at either extreme of its splendid distances, he paused for a moment to account his meager finances. He found that he possessed just four one-dollar bills and about eighty cents in small change. Since he was compelled to pay a half dollar each night in advance for his lodgings, a little over two dollars would remain to him. With rigid economy and almost miserly abstemiousness this sum would suffice for his meals, unless he developed a mania for Delmonico's, and for his carfare, provided he did not venture outside the possibilities of the elevated. As he was about to return his resources to his pocket there was a rattle and clamor up the street, and looking in that direction he beheld a glittering engine, drawn by a splendid team of white horses, speed along with plunging dash and portent rumble. Along the sidewalk directly in his rear the usual mob of men and boys who have nothing more to do apparently than to attend fires and scramble with a morbid curiosity to behold the misery of some victim of accident, ran in scuffling uproar. With a pathetic realization of his own idleness, Dennis turned to join the speeding throng, when suddenly he became aware of a desperate clutch at his hand, heard the rattle of scattering change at his feet, and felt the bills which he held slip away from his grasp and disappear in the rush. It was over in a second. Apparently no one noticed him or his loss. He was as abandoned as the unfortunate marooned by rushing waters; as unheeded as a lame lamb in the multitude of the flock. Not a head turned, and by the time he realized precisely what had happened and prepared to give chase to the thief, a score of other men and boys formed an unconscious barricade between the unfortunate boy and the rogue. His suddenly created interest in the fire vanished and was replaced by the despair of his own disaster. The nap of his providence was developing into a sound slumber, and since this deity never gets up before noon Dennis had still two hours of despair before him. And what despair! Of his pitiful hoard of a few moments since only a few dimes and nickels remained. And just across the street was the Third National Bank with barrels of them. The whimsies of the contrast almost amused him; but there was not enough of the Tapley about him to detect its humor. Again he counted his resources. Fifty-eight cents! He could lodge to-night, at any rate, and dine on one of those sidewalk pretzels. "The darkest hour is just before the dawn." Dennis tried to cheer himself with this reflection, but the only dawn upon which he could calculate was five days off. In vain the poor fellow adjured his brains for some homely suggestion, some meager inspiration.