descended upon it in search of the
spoons and diamonds. Somehow the fancy tickled him to that extent
that he felt almost as hysterical as a woman. He laughed aloud, and
two men whom he met just then turned round and looked at him
suspiciously.

"Dopey, I guess," one said, audibly, to the other.

It was now in Carroll's mind to gain the Elevated as soon as
possible, and hurry down-town to his ferry and catch his train. He
consulted his watch, and saw that he had just about time, if there
were no delays. As he replaced his watch he remembered that he had,
besides his railroad book, very little money, only a little silver.
The helplessness of a cripple came over him. He recalled seeing a man
who had lost both his legs shuffling along on the sidewalk, with the
stumps bound with leather, carrying a little tray of lead-pencils
which nobody seemed to buy. He felt like that cripple. A man living
to-day in the heart of civilization, where money is in reality legs
and wings and hands, is nothing more than a torso without it, he
thought. He felt mutilated, unspeakably humiliated. It seemed more
out of his ability to get any honest employment than it had ever done
before. A number of laborers with their dinner-satchels, and their
pickaxes over their shoulders, passed him. They looked at him, as
they passed, with gloomy hostility. It was as if they accused him of
having something which of a right belonged to them. He fell to
wondering how he would figure in their ranks. He was no longer a very
young man. However, his muscles were still good and supple; it really
seemed to him that he might dig or pick away at rocks, as he had seen
men doing in that apparently aimless and hopeless and never-ending
fashion. He thought in such a case he should have to join the union,
and he really wondered if they would admit him, if he pawned his
clothes and should buy some poorer ones. He decided, passing himself
before himself in mental review, that he might be treated by the
leaders of a labor union very much as he had just been treated by Mr.
Baumstein at his area door. He also decided that men like those who
had just met him regard him with even worse suspicion and disfavor.
He remembered stories he had read of gentlemen, of students,
voluntarily joining the ranks of labor for the sake of information,
but it seemed somehow impossible when it was attempted in earnest.
Decidedly, his appearance was against him. He had the misfortune to
look too