As I walked along now, I saw a “Janitor Wanted” sign on the area railing of an apartment house. I halted and looked at it. After having lived all my life in New York apartments, I knew what a janitor’s job was like. It would mean taking my wife to live in a dark garbage-smelling basement. But I had come to a state of desperation-of almost panic. I hesitated, then swallowed my pride, braced myself, and went down the area-steps to the basement. This janitor’s job might tide over until I could find something else.
The wiry little Yiddish superintendent of the building was there, just inside the basement door, talking to two other applicants-a big negro and an Italian. When I arrived, the superintendent turned to me.
“How about this janitor’s job?” I asked; and my manner might have shown a little something of patronage.
He looked me over critically. The negro and Italian watched anxiously. Then the superintendent gave a Jew shrug, shook his head, and dismissed me with a belittling smile.
“I vant a man dat could lif’ de garbage cans und big tings. You vas too old.”
The last drop of gall was added to the bitterness of my humiliation. I was too old to be the janitor of even a third-rate Harlem apartment house. As I stumbled back up the area-steps, I heard him hire the big negro for the job. Every atom of me tingled so with humiliation that I forgot to take a street car, but walked the rest of the long distance home. By the time I reached there, I was trembling and pretty well all in.
III
And then came the happening which led to the final big experience of my life.
I had halted in the lower hall, to rest a minute before climbing the stairs to my own apartment. I stood with my foot on the lower step, leaning heavily against the banisters. The outside door opened and Miss Marsh came in. I was too tired to try and escape her. She stopped beside me and asked anxiously:-
“What’s the matter, Mr. Allen?”