the store, followed by the intimation that he was some runaway or thief.

No wonder that Tom felt discouraged and depressed in spirits as he rode
homeward in the street-car. He was so wearied that he dropped down in one
corner, where he soon fell asleep, not waking until he had gone fully two
miles beyond the point where he should have left the vehicle. This sleep
so mixed him up that it was nearly ten o'clock when he reached his hotel,
as we may call it.

He was hopeful that Jim would have a better story to tell; but to his
amazement, he found that his friend, despite the lateness of the hour,
had not yet come back. A shiver of alarm passed over Tom, for he was
certain that some dreadful evil had befallen him.

Most likely he had been waylaid and killed in some of the hundred
different ways which the police reports show are adopted by the assassins
of New York in disposing of their victims.




Chapter X.



Tom's anxiety for his comrade drove all thought of sleep from his eyes for
the time; and he sat long in the hot, smoky air of the room down-stairs,
in the hope that Jim would come.

It seemed to the watcher that there was an unusually large number of