satisfied."



CHAPTER V

PAUL LOSES HIS BASKET

Paul continued in the prize-package business for three weeks. His
success varied, but he never made less than seventy-five cents a day,
and sometimes as much as a dollar and a quarter. He was not without
competitors. More than once, on reaching his accustomed stand, he found
a rival occupying it before him. In such cases he quietly passed on,
and set up his business elsewhere, preferring to monopolize the trade,
though the location might not be so good.

Teddy O'Brien did not again enter the field. We left him, at the end
of the last chapter, trying to escape from Mike and Jim, who demanded a
larger sum than he was willing to pay for their services. He succeeded
in escaping with his money, but the next day the two confederates caught
him, and Teddy received a black eye as a receipt in full of all demands.
So, on the whole, he decided that some other business would suit
him better, and resumed the blacking-box, which he had abandoned on
embarking in commercial pursuits.

Mike Donovan and Jim Parker were two notoriously bad boys, preferring to
make a living in any other way than by honest industry. As some of these
ways were not regarded as honest in the sight of the law, each had more
than once been sentenced to a term at Blackwell's Island. They made a
proposition to Paul to act as decoy ducks for him in the same way as for