n ways which almost unhinged his brain when he reflected
upon them afterwards. Whatever he had done before, the man tried in
those days every means to obtain an honest livelihood, except the one
which he knew was always open, and from which he shrank with such
repugnance that it seemed he could not even contemplate it and his
mind retain his balance. In his uneasy sleep at night he often had a
dream of that experience which had yielded him money, which might
yield him money again. He saw before him the sea of faces, of the
commonest American type, of the type whose praise and applause mean
always a certain disparagement. He saw his own face, his proud, white
face with the skin and lineaments of a proud family, stained into the
likeness of a despised race; he heard his own tongue forsaking the
pure English of his fathers for the soft thickness of the negro,
roaring the absurd sentimental songs; he saw his own stately limbs
contorted in the rollicking, barbaric dance--and awoke with a cold
sweat over him. He knew all the time that that was all was left to
him, but he snatched at everything. He could not obtain the
floor-walker position of which he had spoken to Anderson. He thought
that possibly his fine presence and urbane manner might recommend him
for a place of that sort, but it was already filled. He went to
several of the great department stores and inquired if there was a
vacancy. He felt that the superintendents to whom he applied regarded
his good points as he might have regarded the good points of a horse.
One of them told him that if he would give his address, he would be
given the preference whenever a vacancy occurred. Carroll knew that
he was mentally appraised as a promising person to direct ladies to
ribbon and muslin counters. He looked at another floor-walker
strutting up and down the aisle, and felt sure that he could do
better, and all this amused contempt for himself deepened and bored
its way into his very soul. He always asked himself, with the demand
of an unpitying judge, if he could not have done better for himself
if he had begun at once; if he had not at the first failure drifted
with no resistance, with the pleasant, easy, devil-may-careness which
was in his nature along with the sterner stuff which was now
upheaving and asserting itself, and taken what he could, how he
could. He had not, after all, had an absolutely unhappy home,
although it had been founded on the sands, and although that iro