“You’re getting on finely, old fellow,” said James Barclay to himself, as he left the tenement¹ house, and steered² toward Broadway. “I managed that old woman skillfully, and got all the information I want. I think, Jerry Barclay, you won’t long elude³ me. I shall have no trouble now in finding the telegraph boy, and then I shall soon be face to face with the old man.”

Arrived at Printing House Square, he struck across the City Hall Park, the other side of which is skirted by Broadway.

Sitting on one of the benches was a man rather showily dressed, with a red blotched face, and an indefinable expression that stamped him as one who lived by his wits, rather than by honest toil⁴. As Barclay’s glance rested upon him, he uttered an exclamation⁵ of surprise.

“Bill Slocum, is that you?” he said.

“Jim Barclay, as I’m a sinner,” said the other, rising and extending a rough hand, on one of whose fingers sparkled a ring, set with what might have been a diamond, but was probably paste. “And how is the world using you, old pal⁶?”

“Rough,” answered Barclay. “The old man’s gone back on me, and my own wife made a great fuss because I wanted to borrow a dollar. Sometimes I think I was better off in our old boarding place up the river.”

[86]

Bill Slocum was one of his fellow boarders up at Sing Sing.

“The world owes you a living, Barclay,” said his friend.

“So it does, but how’s a chap going to collect his claim? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“O, well, there’s ways if you only know how,” said Slocum, rather enigmatically.

“How are you makin’ it yourself?” asked Barclay, curiously⁷.

“I get enough to eat and drink and wear. I ain’t in no anxiety about livin’.”

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