s
that the world needed, and now they had to wait till some wore out! It
was nobody's fault--that was the way of it; and thousands of men and
women were turned out in the dead of winter, to live upon their savings
if they had any, and otherwise to die. So many tens of thousands already
in the city, homeless and begging for work, and now several thousand
more added to them!

Jurgis walked home-with his pittance of pay in his pocket, heartbroken,
overwhelmed. One more bandage had been torn from his eyes, one more
pitfall was revealed to him! Of what help was kindness and decency on
the part of employers--when they could not keep a job for him, when
there were more harvesting machines made than the world was able to buy!
What a hellish mockery it was, anyway, that a man should slave to make
harvesting machines for the country, only to be turned out to starve for
doing his duty too well!

It took him two days to get over this heart-sickening disappointment. He
did not drink anything, because Elzbieta got his money for safekeeping,
and knew him too well to be in the least frightened by his angry
demands. He stayed up in the garret however, and sulked--what was the
use of a man's hunting a job when it was taken from him before he had
time to learn the work? But then their money was going again, and little
Antanas was hungry, and crying with the bitter cold of the garret. Also
Madame Haupt, the midwife, was after him for some money. So he went out
once more.

For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys of the huge city,
sick and hungry, begging for any work. He tried in stores and offices,
in restaurants and hotels, along the docks and in the railroad yards, in
warehouses and mills and factories where they made products that went
to every corner of the world. There were often one or two chances--but
there were always a hundred men for every chance, and his turn would not
come. At night he crept into sheds and cellars and doorways--until there
came a spell of belated winter weather, with a raging gale, and the
thermometer five degrees below zero at sundown and falling all night.
Then Jurgis fought like a wild beast to get into the big Harrison Street
police station, and slept down in a corridor, crowded with two other men
upon a single step.

He had to fight often in these days to fight for a place near the
factory gates, and now and again with gangs on the street. He found, for
instance, that the business of car