He was beginning to find, in his wretched clothing and meagre state of
body, that people took him for a chronic type of bum and beggar. Police
hustled him along, restaurant and lodginghouse keepers turned him out
promptly the moment he had his due; pedestrians waved him off. He found
it more and more difficult to get anything from anybody.

At last he admitted to himself that the game was up. It was after a
long series of appeals to pedestrians, in which he had been refused and
refused--every one hastening from contact.

"Give me a little something, will you, mister?" he said to the last one.
"For God's sake, do; I'm starving."

"Aw, get out," said the man, who happened to be a common type himself.
"You're no good. I'll give you nawthin'."

Hurstwood put his hands, red from cold, down in his pockets. Tears came
into his eyes.

"That's right," he said; "I'm no good now. I was all right. I had money.
I'm going to quit this," and, with death in his heart, he started down
toward the Bowery. People had turned on the gas before and died; why
shouldn't he? He remembered a lodginghouse where there were little,
close rooms, with gas-jets in them, almost pre-arranged, he thought, for
what he wanted to do, which rented for fifteen cents. Then he remembered
that he had no fifteen cents.

On the way he met a comfortable-looking gentleman, coming, clean-shaven,
out of a fine barber shop.

"Would you mind giving me a little something?" he asked this man boldly.

The gentleman looked him over and fished for a dime. Nothing but
quarters were in his pocket.

"Here," he said, handing him one, to be rid of him. "Be off, now."

Hurstwood moved on, wondering. The sight of the large, bright coin
pleased him a little. He remembered that he was hungry and that he could
get a bed for ten cents. With this, the idea of death passed, for the
time being, out of his mind. It was only when he could get nothing but
insults that death seemed worth while.

One day, in the middle of the winter, the sharpest spell of the season
set in. It broke grey and cold in the first day, and on the second
snowed. Poor luck pursuing him, he had secured but ten cents by
nightfall, and this he had spent for food. At evening he found himself
at the Boulevard and Sixty-seventh Street, where he finally turned
his face Bowery-ward. Especially fatigued because of the wandering
propensity which had seized him in the morning, he now half dragged his
wet feet, s