determined to purchase a comb, at least, as soon as possible, and a
brush too, if he could get one cheap. Meanwhile he combed his hair
with his fingers as well as he could, though the result was not
quite so satisfactory as it might have been.

A question now came up for consideration. For the first time in
his life Dick possessed two suits of clothes. Should he put on the
clothes Frank had given him, or resume his old rags?

Now, twenty-four hours before, at the time Dick was introduced to
the reader's notice, no one could have been less fastidious as to
his clothing than he. Indeed, he had rather a contempt for good
clothes, or at least he thought so. But now, as he surveyed the
ragged and dirty coat and the patched pants, Dick felt ashamed of
them. He was unwilling to appear in the streets with them. Yet, if
he went to work in his new suit, he was in danger of spoiling it,
and he might not have it in his power to purchase a new one. Economy
dictated a return to the old garments. Dick tried them on, and
surveyed himself in the cracked glass; but the reflection did not
please him.

"They don't look 'spectable," he decided; and, forthwith taking them
off again, he put on the new suit of the day before.

"I must try to earn a little more," he thought, "to pay for my room,
and to buy some new clo'es when these is wore out."

He opened the door of his chamber, and went downstairs and into the
street, carrying his blacking-box with him.