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 he could easily get some one else "more useful and less impident."

After amusing himself by watching the shipping for a while, Dave decided to keep out of the way until the following evening, by which time his old ship would have sailed. Boarding a street car, he travelled at random to another part of the town, where he began to search for a room. Seeing an elderly man digging in a cottage garden, he spoke to him over the fence.

"Can you tell me where I could get a room for a few nights?" the boy asked.

The man straightened his back.

"I don't jest know," he said, surveying Dave, who was wearing his only respectable suit of clothes. "I 'll speak to my missis."

The "missis," a portly soul with a jovial face, came out.

"I 've got an empty room that my son had afore he went up-country," she said. "You can have that if you don't mind roughing it."