During this wait I found that my money was nearly gone. I had fifty cents on hand for board. I asked a disreputable fellow, near the Temperance Hotel, where I could get some cheap meals. He pointed to the next street and told me that they had three-cent meals in some of the eating-houses there. That evening I indulged in a three-cent supper. It consisted of a dish of beans, a slice of bread, some “butter” and a cup of coffee. I went to the same place for breakfast the next morning and for three cents secured a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a dish of stew. That morning a heavy rain began to fall, and, for the first time, I began to miss the shoes I had left in the caboose. I had on a suit of good clothes, so that the worn tennis shoes on my feet were all the more startling; but when the streets were filled with running brooks of rain through which I was forced to walk, it was not merely a matter of appearance with me, but a matter of comfort. On my way to the stock-yards to see what the sales stables could do for me, my feet were uncomfortably soaked to the skin. The canvas tops of the shoes were like mops. Every step I took on the sidewalk was the cause of a soggy, moppish slop. I expected the first policeman to arrest me as a suspicious character. I went from stable to stable, and at each one asked in a tremulous voice if they were about to send any horses to New York or Boston in the near future, but neither sales nor shipments were being made. I tried to interest some of the stock-drovers in the cattle yards in my affairs, but evidently I bored them. I paid another, desperate visit to the Stockman’s Hotel, but the cattle-buyers would not give me a word of encouragement towards a pass to New York City. After this I returned to the heart of the city and began to plan against absolute starvation. Even with three-cent meals I could not have a much longer time to eat unless I obtained some more money. Then I felt the bulge of my nickel-plated watch, in my vest pocket. I had paid a dollar for it and had used it for two years. It had been purchased second-hand from a mill friend and had originally cost not more than three dollars. I hurried to a pawn-broker’s shop and said, eagerly, as I handed the shopman the weighty time-piece: “You can have this at your own price--I don’t care how much you offer. I need the money!” He tossed the watch in the palm of his hand, then laughed, and as he handed it back to me he said, impatiently: “G’wan! It ain’t wuth a flea! I wouldn’t buy dat t’ing fer junk! Git!” Disconsolately I passed out, with the shopman’s scornful eyes on me, and the gaze of a burly negro and his wife following me. I had no sooner reached the sidewalk, however, than the negro came out and said: “Say, how much yo’ want fo’ dat watch?”