Tom, The Bootblack; or, The Road to Success

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCING TOM, THE BOOTBLACK.

"How do you feel this morning, Jacob?" asked a boy of fifteen, bending over an old man crouched in the corner of an upper room, in a poor tenement-house, distant less than a quarter of a mile from the New York City Hall.

"Weak, Tom," whined the old man, in reply. "I--I ain't got much strength."...