If New York is bigger, then there is more to be done." So Peter, whose New York acquaintances were limited to Watts and four other collegians, the Pierces and their fashionables, and a civil engineer originally from his native town, had decided that the way to go about it was to get an office, hang up a sign, and wait for clients.
On the morning after his arrival, his first object was a lodging.
Selecting from the papers the advertisements of several boarding-houses, he started in search of one.

Watts had told him about where to locate, "so as to live in a decent part of the city," but after seeing and pricing a few rooms near the "Avenue," about Thirtieth Street, Peter saw that Watts had been thinking of his own purse, rather than of his friend's.
"Can you tell me where the cheaper boarding-houses are ?" he asked the woman who had done the honors of the last house.
"If it's cheapness you want, you'd better go to Bleecker Street," said the woman with a certain contemptuousness.
Peter thanked her, and, walking away, accosted the first policeman.
"It's Blaker Strate, is it?
Take the Sixth Avenue cars, there beyant," he was informed.
"Is it a respectable street ?" asked Peter.
"Don't be afther takin' away a strate's character," said the policeman, grinning good-naturedly.
"I mean," explained Peter, "do respectable people live there ?" "Shure, it's mostly boarding-houses for young men," replied the unit of "the finest." "Ye know best what they're loike." Reassured, Peter, sought and found board in Bleecker Street, not comprehending that he had gone to the opposite extreme.

It was a dull season, and he had no difficulty in getting such a room as suited both his expectations and purse.

By dinner-time he had settled his simple household goods to his satisfaction, and slightly moderated the dreariness of the third floor front, so far as the few pictures and other furnishings from his college rooms could modify the effect of well-worn carpet, cheap, painted furniture, and ugly wall-paper.
Descending to his dinner, in answer to a bell more suitable for a fire-alarm than for announcing such an ordinary occurrence as meals, he was introduced to the four young men who were all the boarders the summer season had left in the house.

Two were retail dry-goods clerks, another filled some function in a butter and cheese store, and the fourth was the ticket-seller at one of the middle-grade theatres.