And
I began to grow home-sick, wanted to get back to England. The
result was that I found myself one day in New York again, but
without money enough to pay for a passage home. I tried to write
one more story. But it happened, as I was looking over newspapers
in a reading-room, that I saw one of my Chicago tales copied into
a paper published at Troy. Now Troy was not very far off; and it
occurred to me that, if I went there, the editor of this paper
might be disposed to employ me, seeing he had a taste for my
fiction. And I went, up the Hudson by steamboat. On landing at
Troy I was as badly off as when I reached Chicago; I had less
than a dollar. And the worst of it was I had come on a vain
errand; the editor treated me with scant courtesy, and no work
was to be got. I took a little room, paying for it day by day,
and in the meantime I fed on those loathsome pea-nuts, buying a
handful in the street now and then. And I assure you I looked
starvation in the face.'
'What sort of a town is Troy?' asked Marian, speaking for the
first time.
'Don't ask me.
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