t was
a mere scratch. He washed his hands and face, still in a brown study,
apparently, and combed his hair. Then he looked for something to eat,
and finally, his hunger gone, sat down in his comfortable rocking-chair.
It was a wonderful relief.

He put his hand to his chin, forgetting, for the moment, the papers.

"Well," he said, after a time, his nature recovering itself, "that's a
pretty tough game over there."

Then he turned and saw the papers. With half a sigh he picked up the
"World."

"Strike Spreading in Brooklyn," he read. "Rioting Breaks Out in all
Parts of the City."

He adjusted his paper very comfortably and continued. It was the one
thing he read with absorbing interest.

Chapter XLII. A TOUCH OF SPRING--THE EMPTY SHELL

Those who look upon Hurstwood's Brooklyn venture as an error of judgment
will none the less realise the negative influence on him of the fact
that he had tried and failed. Carrie got a wrong idea of it. He said
so little that she imagined he had encountered nothing worse than
the ordinary roughness--quitting so soon in the face of this seemed
trifling. He did not want to work.

She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act
of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate
as the treasures of his harem. There was no word assigned to any of
them, but on the evening when Hurstwood was housing himself in the
loft of the street-car barn, the leading comedian and star, feeling
exceedingly facetious, said in a profound voice, which created a ripple
of laughter:

"Well, who are you?"

It merely happened to be Carrie who was courtesying before him. It might
as well have been any of the others, so far as he was concerned. He
expected no answer and a dull one would have been reproved. But Carrie,
whose experience and belief in herself gave her daring, courtesied
sweetly again and answered:

"I am yours truly."

It was a trivial thing to say, and yet something in the way she did it
caught the audience, which laughed heartily at the mock-fierce potentate
towering before the young woman. The comedian also liked it, hearing the
laughter.

"I thought your name was Smith," he returned, endeavouring to get the
last laugh.

Carrie almost trembled for her daring after she had said this. All
members of the company had been warned that to interpolate lines or
"business" meant a fine or worse. She did not know what to think.

As she was