A short "No" was the reply, and the proprietor instantly turned his back upon him.

Then he tried a drug-store, where he was treated in the same manner.

In a hat and cap store, the rotund clerk tried to chaff him, but he didn't make much of a success of it.

In answer to his question, the clerk replied that he didn't need a boy just then, but when he did he would send his carriage around to the Metropolitan for him.
When Tom timidly introduced his errand to an old gentleman in spectacles, as he sat at his desk in a large shipping-office, the old fellow exclaimed in an awed voice,-- "Great Heavens, no! I don't want to hire any boy." And so it went, hour after hour, until the future, which had looked so beautiful in the morning, gradually became overcast with clouds, and the poor lad was forced to stop and rest from sheer weariness.
He kept it up bravely till night, when he started on his return to his lodgings.

He found on inquiry that he was several miles distant, his wanderings having covered more ground than he supposed.