stood still at the corner of
Fulton street, cursing the luck which had brought him to his present
plight.

It was the noon hour, the important time of day when nature loudly
claims her due, when business affairs, no matter how pressing, must be
temporarily interrupted so that the human machine may lay in a fresh
store of nervous energy. From under the portals of precipitous office
buildings, mammoth hives of human industry, which to right and left
soared dizzily from street to sky, swarmed thousands of employees of
both sexes--clerks, stenographers, shop-girls, messenger boys, all moved
by a common impulse to satisfy without further delay the animal cravings
of their physical natures. They strode along with quick, nervous step,
each chatting and laughing with his fellow, interested for the nonce in
the day's work, making plans for well-earned recreation when five
o'clock should come and the up-town stampede for Harlem and home begin.

The young man sullenly watched the scene, envious of the energy and
activity of all about him. Each one in these hurrying throngs, he
thought bitterly to himself, was a valuable unit in the prosperity and
welfare of the big town. No matter how humble his or her position, each
played a part in the business life of the great city, each was an
unseen, unknown, yet indispensable cog in the whirling, complicated
mechanism of the vast world-metropolis. Intuitively he felt that he was
not one of them, that he had no right even to consider himself their
equal. He was utterly useless to anybody. He was without position or
money. He was destitute even of a shred of self-respect. Hadn't he
promised Annie not to touch liquor again before he found a job? Yet he
had already imbibed all the whiskey which the little money left in his
pocket would buy.

Involuntarily, instinctively, he shrank back into the shadow of a
doorway to let the crowds pass. The pavements were now filled to
overflowing and each moment newcomers from the side streets came to
swell the human stream. He tried to avoid observation, fearing that some
one might recognize him, thinking all could read on his face that he was
a sot, a self-confessed failure, one of life's incompetents. In his
painful self-consciousness he believed himself the cynosure of every eye
and he winced as he thought he detected on certain faces side glances of
curiosity, commiseration and contempt.

Nor was he altogether mistaken. More than one passer-by turned