Business was left; but it needed money, and if he tried to enter it as a clerk, he must first obtain smart clothes and find somebody to certify his ability and character, which was impossible. It looked as if he must be content with manual labor. The wages it commanded were not low and he was physically strong, but he shrank from the lives the lower ranks of toilers led when their work was done. The crowded bunk-house and squalid tenement revolted him. Still, he was young and optimistic; his luck might change when he went South and chance give him an opportunity of breaking through the barriers that shut him in. He sat in the corner, pondering, until it got late and the tired Italian politely turned him out.
Next morning he joined a group of waiting men at the railroad station. They had a dejected look as they sat upon their bundles outside the agent’s office, except for three or four who were cheerfully drunk. Their clothes were shabby and of different kinds, for some wore cheap store-suits and some work-stained overalls. It was obvious that adversity had brought them together, and Dick did not think they would make amiable companions. About half appeared to be Americans, but he could not determine the nationality of the rest, who grumbled in uncouth English with different accents.
By and by the clerk whom Dick had met came out of the office with a bundle of tickets, which he distributed, and soon afterwards the train rolled into the depot. Dick was not pleased to find that a car had been reserved for the party, since he would sooner have traveled with the ordinary passengers. Indeed, when a dispute began as the train moved slowly through the wet street, he left the car. In passing through the next, he met the conductor, who asked for his ticket, and after tearing off a section of the long paper, gave him a card, which he gruffly ordered him to stick in his hat. Then he put his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and pushed him back through the vestibule.
“That’s your car behind and you’ll stop right there,” he said. “Next time you come out we’ll put you off the train.”
Dick resigned himself, but stopped on the front platform and looked back as the train jolted across a rattling bridge. A wide, yellow river ran beneath it, and the tall factories and rows of dingy houses were fading in the rain and smoke on the other side. Dick watched them until they grew indistinct, and then his heart felt lighter. He had endured much in the grimy town; but all that was over. After confronting, with instinctive shrinking, industry’s grimmest aspect, he was traveling toward the light and glamour of the South.
Entering the smoking compartment, he found the disturbance had subsided, and presently fell into talk with a man on the opposite seat who asked for some tobacco. He told Dick he was a locomotive fireman, but had got into trouble, the nature of which he did not disclose. Dick never learned much more about his past than this, but their acquaintance ripened and Kemp proved a useful friend.
It was getting dark when they reached an Atlantic port and were lined up on the terminal platform by a man who read out a list of their names. He expressed his opinion of them with sarcastic vigor when it was discovered that three of the party had left the train on the way; and then packed the rest into waiting automobiles, which conveyed them to the wharf as fast as the machines would go.
“Guess you won’t quit this journey. The man who jumps off will sure get hurt,” he remarked as they started.
In spite of his precautions, another of the gang was missing when they alighted, and Kemp, the fireman, grinned at Dick.
“That fellow’s not so smart as he allows,” he said. “He’d have gone in the last car, where he could see in front, if he’d known his job.”