At last he thought the hour had come when the post-office would be open again, and he set off for Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street.
When he reached the station he checked his walk. He did not dare go in, although the doors were open, and he could see other men and women asking questions at the little square windows. What if his questions should meet with the same answer as yesterday? What if he should have to spend another night in Union Square?
He nerved himself at last and entered. As he approached the window the clerk looked at him with a glance of recognition.
"McDowell Sutro, isn't it? Yes--there is a letter for you. Overweight, too--there's four cents extra postage to pay."
The young man's hand trembled as he put down the quarter left after paying for his regular breakfast. He seized the envelope swiftly, and almost forgot to pick up his change, till the clerk reminded him of it.
He tore the letter open. It was from Tom Pixley; it contained a post-office order for fifty dollars; and it began:
"MY DEAR MAC,--Go and see Sam Sargent, 78 Broadway, and he will get you a place on the surveyor's staff for the new line of the Barataria Central. I'm writing to him by this mail, and--"
But for a minute McDowell Sutro could read no further. His eyes had filled with tears.
The summer sun had blazed down all day on the low wooden roof of the old shed lately used as an ice-cream saloon, and now hastily altered to accommodate a post of the Salvation Army. Placards at the wide doorway proclaimed that All were Welcome, and besought the stranger to Come in and be Saved. The tall tenements that lined the side-streets east and west had emptied their hundreds of inhabitants out into the avenue that evening, and the sidewalks were thronged with men and women languid from the heat of the day, and longing for the lazy breeze that sometimes creeps into the city with nightfall; but few of them cared to enter the stifling hall where the song-service was about to begin, and that night especially there were many counter-attractions out-doors. Already were the rockets beginning to burst far above the square where the fireworks were to be displayed; and now and again a boy (who had more than boyish self-control) produced a reserve pack of fire-crackers, and dropped them into a barrel, and capered away with delight as the owner of the barrel was called to his door by the rattle of their explosion.