“I did not get to see many of the firm members themselves; their offices are formidable places. There is no office in Macochee like them; they have big outer rooms, full of stenographers and clerks and there is a boy at a desk who makes you tell your business before you can get in to see any of the lawyers themselves. They seem to be mighty big, important fellows. Most of them would not see me at all; several said they had no place for me and dismissed me with a kind of pitying smile; one man, when I asked him if he thought there was an opening, said he supposed there ought to be, as one lawyer in Chicago had died of starvation only the day before. But some were kinder; one, whom I shall never forget, took pains to sit down and talk with me a long time, but he was no more encouraging than the others. He said the profession was terribly overcrowded, ‘that is,’ he corrected himself with a tired smile, ‘if you can call it a profession any longer. It is more of a business nowadays and the only ones who get ahead are those who have big corporations for clients. How they all live is a mystery to me!’ He thought I had better not undertake it and advised me to go into some business. But then most of them did that.
“But I must tell you of my visit to Judge Johnson. You will remember my telling you of him; he was Wade Powell’s chum in the law school in Cincinnati, and Mr. Powell had given me a letter to him. I had a hard time seeing him; the hardest of all. When I went into the big stone government building he was holding court, and a lawyer was making an argument before him. I waited till they were all done, and then when the crier had adjourned court—he said ‘Oyez, Oyez, Oyez,’ instead of the ‘Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye’ we have in Ohio; it sounded so old and quaint, even if he did say ‘Oh yes,’ for ‘Oyez!’ It comes from the old Norman-French, you know; ask your father about it, he’ll explain it—I tried to get in to him. I succeeded at last, but it was hard work. He didn’t seem glad to see me; he looked at me coldly, and made me feel as if I ought to hurry up and state my business promptly and get away. When I gave him Wade Powell’s letter he put on his gold glasses and read it; but—what do you think?—I don’t believe he remembered Wade Powell at all! At least he seemed not to. Of course he may have been putting it on. Wouldn’t it make Wade Powell mad to know that? I’d give a dollar—and I haven’t any to spare either—to see him when he hears that his old friend, Judge Johnson of the United States Circuit Court, couldn’t remember him! Well, the judge didn’t let me detain him long, he looked at his watch a moment, and then he advised me not to try it in Chicago; he said there were too many lawyers here anyhow, and that he thought a young man made a mistake in coming to a city at all.
“‘Why don’t you stay in a small town?’ he asked, looking at me sternly over his glasses. ‘Living is cheaper there, and life is much more simple than it is in the cities. I’ve often wished I had stayed in a little town.’
“I came away, as you can imagine, feeling pretty much cast down and humbled in spirit. There are four thousand lawyers in Chicago; just think of it, almost as many lawyers as there are people in Macochee! As I walked through the crowded streets with men and women rushing along, I wondered how they all lived. What do they do? Where are they all going, and how do they get a place to stand on? As I came across the bridge over to the North Side I felt that there was no place for me here in this great, dirty, ugly city, just as there is no place for me back in peaceful Macochee, where every minute of the day I long to be. Anyway, I am sure that there is no place for me here in the law, and I shall have to look for something else. I see so much wretchedness and poverty and squalor; it is in the street everywhere—pale, gaunt men, who look at you out of sick, appealing eyes.
“This morning I saw a sight down-town that filled me with horror; it was noon, and a great crowd of ragged men were waiting in front of the Daily News office in Fifth Avenue. They were all standing idly and yet expectantly about; I stood and watched them. Presently, as at some signal, they all rushed for the office door, and then all at once they seemed to be enveloped in a white, rustling cloud. Each one had a newspaper, and they all turned to one page and began to read rapidly; sometimes two or three men bent over the same paper; in another moment they had scattered, going in all directions. Then it flashed upon me: they had been waiting for the noon edition of the paper and the page they had all turned to was the page with the ‘want ads’ on it; they were all looking for jobs! It made me inexpressibly sad. I do not wish to inflict my own sorrow upon you, dear heart, but it made me shudder; what if I—but no, the thought is too horrible to mention. And yet I, too, belong to this great army of the unemployed.
“As I write the clock in the steeple of a church a block away chimes the hour of midnight; so you see that I’ve retained my nocturnal habits. When the poets of a coming generation sing of me (as they doubtless will, after my death) their songs will be called Nocturnes.”
That same day Doctor Marley received a letter from his son which Mrs. Marley, though her husband passed it over to her to read, did not show to Lavinia. It ran:
“It’s rather expensive living here, I find; especially for one who belongs to the great army of the unemployed. My contract with my basiliscine landlady calls for two meals a day and a bed at night—also for three-fifty per week in payment of said two meals and bed. My lunches I get down-town; that is, I did get them down-town; for two days I have gone without lunches, and the aforesaid landlady looks reproachfully at me at night when she sees me laying in an extra supply of dinner. I don’t mind the lack of the lunches, even if she does, but I’ll have to pay her in a day or so now. I’m in poor spirits to-night, so can’t write well; cause of said low mental temperature, only eighty cents in the world between me, my landlady and ultimate starvation. It’s funny how much hungrier a fellow gets as the food supply gets low. A word to the wise, etc.
“What do you think? I met Charlie Davis on the street this morning. He is living here now, working in some big department store. My, it was good to see some one from Macochee! How small the world is, after all!
“How are you all? How is Dolly? Does Smith Johnson still clap his hands at his dog every evening as he comes home, and does the dog run out to meet him as joyously as of yore? And does Hank Delphy still go down-town in his shirt-sleeves? And has Charlie Fouly had any fits in the Square lately? And, father, has mother got a girl yet? Give her an ocean of love and tell her not to work too hard, and to let the heathen shift for themselves a while. They haven’t any trusts to monopolize the jobs as yet, and they ought to be able to get along. Oh, how I’d like to see you all! Answer all my questions: I propounded numerous ones to you. I don’t remember now what all of them were, but I know they were all momentous and had much to do with my well-being, spiritual and physical, not to say financial. And see that the moss doesn’t get too thickly overlaid on my memory.”