But this one. He was eighteen or nineteen (as contrasted with others of this same craft who were in the room at this very time, and who were not more than twelve or thirteen; that was before the child-labor laws), and his face was too large, and misshapen, a grotesquerie of the worst invention, a natural joke. His ears were too big and red, his mouth too large and twisted, his nose too humped and protruding, and his square jaw stood out too far, and yet by no means forcefully or aggressively. In addition, his hair needed cutting and stuck out from underneath his small, ill-fitting cap, which sat far up on the crown of his head. At the same time, his pants and coat being small, revealed extra lengths of naked red wrist and hands and made his feet seem even larger than they were.
In those days, as at present, it was almost a universal practice to kid the messenger-boy, large or small, whoever and wherever he was—unless, as at times he proved to be, too old or weary or down on his luck; and even then he was not always spared. In this instance it chanced that the reporter for whom this youth was looking was seated at a desk with myself and some others. We were chatting and laughing, when suddenly this apparition appeared.
“Why, hello Johnnie!” called the one addressed, turning and taking the message yet finding time to turn on the moss-covered line of messenger-boy humor. “Just in from the snow, are you? The best thing is never to get a hair-cut in winter. Positively, the neck should be protected from these inclement breezes.”
“A little short on the pants there, James,” chipped in a second, “but I presume the company figures that the less the baggage or equipment the greater the speed, eh?”
“In the matter of these suits,” went on a third, “style and fit are necessarily secondary to sterling spiritual worth.”
“Aw, cut it!” retorted the youth defiantly.
Being new to New York and rather hard-pressed myself, I was throughout this scene studying this amazing figure and wondering how any corporation could be so parsimonious as to dress a starveling employee in so shabby a way, and from what wretched circumstances such a youth, who would endure such treatment and such work, must spring. Suddenly, seeing me looking at him and wondering, and just as the recipient of the message was handing him back his book signed, his face became painfully and, as it seemed to me, involuntarily contorted with such a grimace of misery and inward spiritual dissatisfaction as I had not seen anywhere before. It was a miserable and moving grimace, followed by a struggle not to show what he felt. But suddenly he turned and drawing a big red cold wrist and hand across his face and eyes and starting for the door, he blurted out: “I never did have no home, God damn it! I never did have no father or mother, like you people, nor no chance either. I was raised in an orphan asylum—” and he was gone.
“Sometimes,” observed the youth who had started this line of jesting, getting up and looking apologetically at the rest of us, “this dam’ persiflage can be sprung in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I apologize. I’m ashamed of myself, and sorry too.”
A Character