The man imagined he saw a feverish gleam in the applicant's eye.
"What hotel did you manage?" he inquired.
"It wasn't a hotel," said Hurstwood."I was manager of Fitzgerald and Moy's place in Chicago for fifteen years."
"Is that so?" said the hotel man."How did you come to get out of that?"
The figure of Hurstwood was rather surprising in contrast to the fact.
"Well, by foolishness of my own.It isn't anything to talk about now.You could find out if you wanted to.I'm 'broke' now and, if you will believe me, I haven't eaten anything to-day."
The hotel man was slightly interested in this story.He could hardly tell what to do with such a figure, and yet Hurstwood's earnestness made him wish to do something.
"Call Olsen," he said, turning to the clerk.
In reply to a bell and a disappearing hall-boy, Olsen, the head porter, appeared.
"Olsen," said the manager, "is there anything downstairs you could find for this man to do? I'd like to give him something."
"I don't know, sir," said Olsen."We have about all the help we need.I think I could find something, sir, though, if you like."
"Do.Take him to the kitchen and tell Wilson to give him something to eat."
"All right, sir," said Olsen.
Hurstwood followed.Out of the manager's sight, the head porter's manner changed.
"I don't know what the devil there is to do," he observed.
Hurstwood said nothing.To him the big trunk hustler was a subject for private contempt.
"You're to give this man something to eat," he observed to the cook.
The latter looked Hurstwood over, and seeing something keen and intellectual in his eyes, said:
"Well, sit down over there."
Thus was Hurstwood installed in the Broadway Central, but not for long.He was in no shape or mood to do the scrub work that exists about the foundation of every hotel.Nothing better offering, he was set to aid the fireman, to work about the basement, to do anything and everything that might offer.
Porters, cooks, firemen, clerks--all were over him.Moreover his appearance did not please these individuals--his temper was too lonely--and they made it disagreeable for him.
With the stolidity and indifference of despair, however, he endured it all, sleeping in an attic at the roof of the house, eating what the cook gave him, accepting a few dollars a week, which he tried to save.His constitution was in no shape to endure.
One day the following February he was sent on an errand to a large coal company's office.It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy.He soaked his shoes in his progress and came back feeling dull and weary.All the next day he felt unusually depressed and sat about as much as possible, to the irritation of those who admired energy in others.
In the afternoon some boxes were to be moved to make room for new culinary supplies.He was ordered to handle a truck.
Encountering a big box, he could not lift it.
"What's the matter there?" said the head porter."Can't you handle it?"
He was straining to lift it, but now he quit.
"No," he said, weakly.
The man looked at him and saw that he was deathly pale.
"Not sick, are you?" he asked.
"I think I am," returned Hurstwood.
"Well, you'd better go sit down, then."
This he did, but soon grew rapidly worse.It seemed all he could do to crawl to his room, where he remained for a day.
"That man Wheeler's sick," reported one of the lackeys to the night clerk.
"What's the matter with him?"
"I don't know.He's got a high fever."
The hotel physician looked at him.
"Better send him to Bellevue," he recommended."He's got pneumonia."
Accordingly, he was carted away.
In three weeks the worst was over, but it was nearly the first of May before his strength permitted him to be turned out.Then he was discharged.
No more weakly looking object ever strolled out into the spring sunshine than the once hale, lusty manager.All his corpulency had fled.His face was thin and pale, his hands white, his body flabby.Clothes and all, he weighed but one hundred and thirty-
five pounds.Some old garments had been given him--a cheap brown coat and misfit pair of trousers.Also some change and advice.
He was told to apply to the charities.
Again he resorted to the Bowery lodging-house, brooding over where to look.From this it was but a step to beggary.
"What can a man do?" he said."I can't starve."
His first application was in sunny Second Avenue.A well-dressed man came leisurely strolling toward him out of Stuyvesant Park.
Hurstwood nerved himself and sidled near.
"Would you mind giving me ten cents?" he said, directly."I'm in a position where I must ask some one."
The man scarcely looked at him, fished in his vest pocket and took out a dime.
"There you are," he said.
"Much obliged," said Hurstwood, softly, but the other paid no more attention to him.
Satisfied with his success and yet ashamed of his situation, he decided that he would only ask for twenty-five cents more, since that would be sufficient.He strolled about sizing up people, but it was long before just the right face and situation arrived.
When he asked, he was refused.Shocked by this result, he took an hour to recover and then asked again.This time a nickel was given him.By the most watchful effort he did get twenty cents more, but it was painful.
The next day he resorted to the same effort, experiencing a variety of rebuffs and one or two generous receptions.At last it crossed his mind that there was a science of faces, and that a man could pick the liberal countenance if he tried.
It was no pleasure to him, however, this stopping of passers-by.
He saw one man taken up for it and now troubled lest he should be arrested.Nevertheless, he went on, vaguely anticipating that indefinite something which is always better.