So far my plan had been carried out. It was Friday evening, and I was safe in Wilkesbarre, somewhat worn by the walk of rather over eighty miles, and with an increased dislike for my burdensome pack, but with every prospect of being fit for work so soon as I should find it. My success in that direction had been so uniform, that instead of sleeping in the open, as I had done on the night before, I allowed myself the luxury of a bed in a cheap boarding-house, and a supper and a breakfast at its table, before beginning my search. Further good fortune awaited me, for Saturday morning lent itself with cheerful brightness to the enterprise. At an early hour I stepped out into a busy street of the city, sore and stiff with walking, but high of hope, and not without a certain elevation of spirit, which might have warned me of a fall. Work on the city sewers was being carried through the public square. I found the contractor, and applied for work as a digger. Very courteously he took the pains to explain to me that he was obliged to keep on hand, and pay for full time, a force of men far larger than was demanded, except by certain exigencies, and that he could not increase their number. Not far from the square another gang of workmen were laying the curbstones and repairing the street, but here I was again refused. I lifted my eyes to the site of a stone building that was nearing completion, and there, too, no added hands were needed. By this time I had neared the post-office, and I found letters awaiting me there which claimed the next half hour. But even more embarrassing, as a check to further search, was a free reading-room, which now invited me to files of New York newspapers, in which I knew that I should find details of recent interesting political developments at Rochester and Saratoga, not to mention possible fresh complications in the more exciting game of politics abroad. I went in, and like Charles Kingsley's young monk, Philemon, who, wandering one day farther than ever before from the monastery in the desert, chanced upon the ruins of an old Egyptian temple; and mindful of a warning against such seduction, yet guiltily charmed by the rare beauty of the frescoes, prayed aloud, "Lord, turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity," but looked, nevertheless--I looked, too, and I read on until mounting remorse robbed the reading of all pleasure and drove me to my task again. But I had fallen once; and, by a sad fatality, scarcely had I renewed the search, with weakened power of resistance, when I stumbled upon a fiercer temptation in the form of a library, which announced in plain letters its freedom to the public until the hour of nine in the evening.