"It is pretty hard lines," said he. "As you know, I never drank, and took fairly good care of myself. I have not slept more than an hour or two for the past week."
Then he told me how, going home to Brooklyn a few evenings before, the nervousness had come so badly on him that he had to hire a boy to go with him. He could not go across the bridge alone.
"At the present moment," said he, "there are nine men in our office suffering from the same complaint."
He seemed to think that the treatment was doing little good; that doctors could do next to nothing.
"Rest, long rest, is what we want, I suppose; but how can a fellow get rest working in a big newspaper office in this city?"
The Remington machine had been rattling on like a Maxim gun in action, the operator taking down dictation on to the machine so quickly that it was almost as good as short-hand. It stopped suddenly, and the fragile anæmic woman who was working it laid down her hands in her lap, saying she was afraid she could not continue. In reply to the question if she was ill she said no—that it was simply she was nervous. She said she had only just returned from the country, where she had been resting for a week—a rest that she could ill afford, but it evidently had not been long enough.
"It is terrible, especially for those who have to keep working for a living, who have to work on to keep their heads above water."
"I suppose it is the penalty we pay for all this," she said, looking out from the window at which she sat.
Down far below was one of the busiest squares in New York; a double line of trolly-cars perpetually running through it that clanged their bells as they swung around the corner; automobiles that pinged their warning gongs and darted in and out amongst the stream of traffic fish-like; labouring horses struggling under heavy loads; the cars packed with people like cattle, standing up and hanging from the straps in the roof, toilers coming back from work; the sidewalks crowded with hurrying people. The seats in the centre of the square held slouching figures with bent heads, figures of dog-tired men—dog-tired with work or the looking for it. A sharp insistent clanging arose above the other sounds like a wailing scream of pain as an automobile ambulance rushed hospital-wards, carrying off one of those wounded in the struggle.