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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Chapter XXXV THE PASSING OF EFFORT: THE VISAGE OF CARE The next morning he looked over the papers and waded through a long list of advertisements, making a few notes. Then he turned to the male-help-wanted column, but with disagreeable feelings. The day was before him-a long day in which to discover something- and this was how he must begin to discover. He scanned the long column, which mostly concerned bakers, bushel-men, cooks, compositors, drivers, and the like, finding two things only which arrested his eye. One was a cashier wanted in a wholesale furniture house, and the other a salesman for a whiskey house. He had never thought of the latter. At once he decided to look that up. The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers. He was admitted almost at once to the manager on his appearance. "Good-morning, sir," said the latter, thinking at first that he was encountering one of his out-of-town customers. "Good-morning," said Hurstwood. "You advertised, I believe, for a salesman?" "Oh," said the man, showing plainly the enlightenment which had come to him. "Yes. Yes, I did." "I thought I’d drop in," said Hurstwood, with dignity. "I’ve had some experience in that line myself." "Oh, have you?" said the man. "What experience have you had?" "Well, I’ve managed several liquor houses in my time. Recently I owned a third-interest in a saloon at Warren and Hudson streets." "I see," said the man. Hurstwood ceased, waiting for some suggestion. "We did want a salesman," said the man. "I don’t know as it’s anything you’d care to take hold of, though." "I see," said Hurstwood. "Well, I’m in no position to choose, at present. If it were open, I should be glad to get it." The man did not take kindly at all to his "No position to choose." He wanted some one who wasn’t thinking of a choice or something better. Especially not an old man. He wanted some one young, active, and glad to work actively for a moderate sum. Hurstwood did not please him at all. He had more of an air than his employers. "Well," he said in answer, "we’d be glad to consider your application. We shan’t decide for a few days yet. Suppose you send us your references." "I will," said Hurstwood. He nodded good-morning and came away. At the corner he looked at the furniture company’s address, and saw that it was in West Twenty-third Street. Accord-ingly, he went up there. The place was not large enough, however. It looked moderate, the men in it idle and small salaried. He walked by, glancing in, and then decided not to go in there. "They want a girl, probably, at ten a week," he said. At one o’clock he thought of eating, and went to a restaurant in Madison Square. There he pondered over places which he might look up. He was tired. It was blowing up grey again. Across the way, through Madison Square Park, stood the great hotels, looking down upon a busy scene. He decided to go over to the lobby of one and sit a while. It was warm in there and bright. He had seen no one he knew at the Broadway Central. In all likelihood he would encounter no one here. Finding a seat on one of the red plush divans close to the great windows which look out on Broadway’s busy rout, he sat musing. His state did not seem so bad in here. Sitting still and looking out, he could take some slight consolation in the few hundred dollars he had in his purse. He could forget, in a measure, the weariness of the street and his tiresome searches. Still, it was only escape from a severe to a less severe state. He was still gloomy and disheartened. There, minutes seemed to go very slowly. An hour was a long, long time in passing. It was filled for him with observations and mental comments concerning the actual guests of the hotel, who passed in and out, and those more prosperous pedestrians whose good fortune showed in their clothes and spirits as they passed along |
