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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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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, fire- men, 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 hard 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 someone." The man scarcely looked at him, but 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. |
