Morning and night Tom went over to the other saloon and inquired after his missing friend.

Each time the bartender replied he had not seen him, and it was his belief that the boy had "skipped the town," as he expressed it.

The little bundle containing all of Jim's possessions was given to Tom, who took it away with him, leaving word where his friend could find him.
Dull, leaden despair filled his heart; and, as he paid his board-bill each evening, he saw with feelings which can scarcely be pictured, the steady decrease of his pile, until it was close to the vanishing point.
Five days had passed since he entered the new hotel, during which not a word was heard of Jim, nor had he seen anything of his friend Patsey McConough.
It seemed to the boy that he had tramped New York from one end to the other in his search for work, and in not a single instance had he received the slightest encouragement.

Two vocations, it may be said, were open to him from the beginning; they were to sell newspapers or to black shoes.

To one of Tom's education and former life, it was the most bitter humiliation to contemplate adopting either of these employments.