so with him that he hated to do
it. He preferred standing off the butcher and baker. He ran up a grocery
bill of sixteen dollars with Oeslogge, laying in a supply of staple
articles, so that they would not have to buy any of those things for
some time to come. Then he changed his grocery. It was the same with the
butcher and several others. Carrie never heard anything of this directly
from him. He asked for such as he could expect, drifting farther and
farther into a situation which could have but one ending.
In this fashion, September went by.
"Isn't Mr. Drake going to open his hotel?" Carrie asked several times.
"Yes. He won't do it before October, though, now."
Carrie became disgusted. "Such a man," she said to herself frequently.
More and more she visited. She put most of her spare money in clothes,
which, after all, was not an astonishing amount. At last the opera she
was with announced its departure within four weeks. "Last two weeks of
the Great Comic Opera success ---- The --------," etc., was upon all
billboards and in the newspapers, before she acted.
"I'm not going out on the road," said Miss Osborne.
Carrie went with her to apply to another manager.
"Ever had any experience?" was one of his questions.
"I'm with the company at the Casino now."
"Oh, you are?" he said.
The end of this was another engagement at twenty per week.
Carrie was delighted. She began to feel that she had a place in the
world. People recognised ability.
So changed was her state that the home atmosphere became intolerable.
It was all poverty and trouble there, or seemed to be, because it was
a load to bear. It became a place to keep away from. Still she slept
there, and did a fair amount of work, keeping it in order. It was
a sitting place for Hurstwood. He sat and rocked, rocked and read,
enveloped in the gloom of his own fate. October went by, and November.
It was the dead of winter almost before he knew it, and there he sat.
Carrie was doing better, that he knew. Her clothes were improved now,
even fine. He saw her coming and going, sometimes picturing to himself
her rise. Little eating had thinned him somewhat. He had no appetite.
His clothes, too, were a poor man's clothes. Talk about getting
something had become even too threadbare and ridiculous for him. So he
folded his hands and waited--for what, he could not anticipate.
At last, however, troubles became too thick. The hounding of creditors,
the ind
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