Excerpt from Tom, the Bootblack: Or the Road to Success
"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."
"Would you like some breakfast?"
"I - I don't know. Breakfast costs money."
"Never you mind about that, Jacob. I can earn money enough for both of us. Come, now, you'd like some coffee and eggs, wouldn't you?"
There was a look of eager appetite in the old man's eyes as he heard the boy speak.
"Yes," he answered, "I should like them; but we can't afford it."
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.