He had emigrated to "make his fortune," or, at all events, to achieve a position in which he could hope to build up a home for the dear ones left behind at Lubeck; and there would not be much chance of his accomplishing this by engaging himself out as a day labourer--to assist some skilled carpenter or bricklayer--which was the only work offered him.
"No, sir; nary an opening here!" was the constant reply he met with at every merchant's office he entered from Wall Street upwards along Broadway until he came to Canal Street; when, finding the shops, or "stores" as the Americans call them, going more in the "dry goods" or haberdashery line, he wended his way back again "down town," investigating the various establishments lying between the main thoroughfare and the North and East rivers, hoping to find a situation vacant in one of the shipping houses thereabouts.
But, "No, sir; all filled up, I guess," was still the stereotyped response to his applications, with much emphasis on the "sir"-- the majority of the Manhattanese uttering this word, as Fritz thought, in a highly indignant tone, although, as he discovered later on, this was the general pronunciation adopted throughout the States.
"I suppose," he said to one gentleman he asked, and who was, it seemed to Fritz, the master, or "boss," of the establishment, from the fact of his lounging back in a rocking chair contiguous to his desk, and balancing his feet instead of his hands on the latter,--"I suppose it's because I can give no references to former employers here, that all the men I speak to invariably decline my services ?" "No, sirree; I reckon not," was the reply.

"Guess we don't care a cuss where you come from.

We take a man as we find him, for just what he is worth, without minding what he might have been in the old country, or bothering other folks for his ka-racter, you bet! I reckon, mister, you'd better start right away out West if you want work.

Book-keepers and sich-like are played out haar; we're filled up to bustin' with 'em, I guess!" It was good advice probably; but, still, Fritz did not care to act upon it.

Having been accustomed all his life to the shipping trade, he wished to find some opening in that special branch of business; and, if he went inland to Chicago or elsewhere, he thought, he would be abandoning his chances for securing the very sort of work he preferred to have.