l, and pocket the three
hundred dollars as his reward for the risk of offending Mike Scully! All
that he told Jurgis was that he was now free, and that the best thing
he could do was to clear out as quickly as possible; and so Jurgis
overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and fourteen
cents that was left him out of all his bank account, and put it with the
two dollars and quarter that was left from his last night's celebration,
and boarded a streetcar and got off at the other end of Chicago.

Chapter 27

Poor Jurgis was now an outcast and a tramp once more. He was
crippled--he was as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost
its claws, or been torn out of its shell. He had been shorn, at one
cut, of all those mysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a
living easily and to escape the consequences of his actions. He could
no longer command a job when he wanted it; he could no longer steal with
impunity--he must take his chances with the common herd. Nay worse, he
dared not mingle with the herd--he must hide himself, for he was one
marked out for destruction. His old companions would betray him, for the
sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and he would be made
to suffer, not merely for the offense he had committed, but for others
which would be laid at his door, just as had been done for some poor
devil on the occasion of that assault upon the "country customer" by him
and Duane.

And also he labored under another handicap now. He had acquired new
standards of living, which were not easily to be altered. When he had
been out of work before, he had been content if he could sleep in a
doorway or under a truck out of the rain, and if he could get fifteen
cents a day for saloon lunches. But now he desired all sorts of other
things, and suffered because he had to do without them. He must have a
drink now and then, a drink for its own sake, and apart from the food
that came with it. The craving for it was strong enough to master every
other consideration--he would have it, though it were his last nickel
and he had to starve the balance of the day in consequence.

Jurgis became once more a besieger of factory gates. But never since he
had been in Chicago had he stood less chance of getting a job than just
then. For one thing, there was the economic crisis, the million or two
of men who had been out of work in the spring and summer, and were not
yet all back, by any means. An