"Two years ago." "Did they die in New York?" "Yes, sir. They died of small-pox," volunteered Sam. "And have you been supporting yourself since then?" "Yes, sir." "How does it happen that you have not been round here before?" "I was living with my uncle," answered Sam, hesitating. "Why have you left him?" "He didn't treat me well." "Perhaps you didn't behave well." "Oh, yes, I did." "What is your uncle's name?" "James Cooper." "Where does he live,--in what street?" "He's moved away from the city now," said Sam, feeling that he must put a stop to these inconvenient inquiries. So Sam was admitted to the privileges of the lodging-house. Now, he found it much easier to get along. For eighteen cents a day he was provided with lodging, breakfast and supper, and it was not often that he could not obtain as much as that. When he could earn enough more to buy a "square meal" in the middle of the day, and a fifteen-cent ticket to the pit of the Old Bowery theatre in the evening, he felt happy. He was fairly adrift in the streets of the great city, and his future prospects did not look very brilliant. It is hardly necessary to say that in a moral point of view he had deteriorated rather than improved. In fact, he was fast developing into a social outlaw, with no particular scruples against lying or stealing. One thing may be said in his favor, he never made use of his strength to oppress a younger boy. On the whole, he was good-natured, and not at all brutal. He had on one occasion interfered successfully to protect a young boy from one of greater strength who was beating him. I like to mention this, because I do not like to have it supposed that Sam was wholly bad. We will now advance the story some months, and see what they have done for Sam. To begin with, they have not improved his wardrobe. When he first came to the city he was neatly though coarsely dressed; now his clothes hang in rags about him, and, moreover, they are begrimed with mud and grease. His straw hat and he have some time since parted company, and he now wears a greasy article which he picked up at a second-hand store in Baxter street for twenty-five cents. If Sam were troubled with vanity, he might feel disturbed by his disreputable condition; but as he sees plenty of other boys of his own class no better dressed, he thinks very little about it. Such as they are, his clothes are getting too small for him, for Sam has grown a couple of inches since he came to the city. Such was our hero's appearance when one day he leaned against a building on Broadway, and looked lazily at the vehicles passing, wishing vaguely that he had enough money to buy a square meal. A Broadway stage was passing at the time. A small man, whose wrinkled face indicated that he was over sixty, attempted to descend from the stage while in motion. In some way he lost his footing, and, falling, managed to sprain his ankle, his hat falling off and rolling along on the pavement.