as 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