I wisely changed the article of agreement regarding clothes; I got up my own outfit! Next morning, at half-past five, I met Tim, the man who had accepted the challenge, and we proceeded to the labor-market.
From the “want” columns of the morning papers we selected a few bits of labor bait. We ran them down, failed to find anything, and turned to the shops and factories on the West Side. The answers were monotonous. “Full up,” they said, or a card at the door or gate announced that the firm had a “full complement.” I felt like a mendicant. I found myself begging for work in a subservient tone and manner. In one place, I remember, I said, “For God’s sake.” The superintendent laughed and waved us away.
“The harrudest work, for sure, is no worruk at all, at all!” said my companion, by way of sympathy.
It was mid-afternoon; I was growing desperate with my sense of failure, and at this point I launched a scheme which had been growing in my mind for hours.
“Keep close to me now, Tim,” I said, and I led him into a drug-store at the corner of Grand Street and the Bowery.
“Sir,” I said to the clerk, “you are not accustomed to giving credit, I know; but perhaps you might suspend your rule for once and trust a stranger for a very small sum?”
“What is’t?” asked the clerk, with something of a sneer.
“I am hungry and thirsty. I have looked for work since five o’clock, and have utterly failed to find it. Now I have a scheme; I know it will work. Oxalic acid eats away rust. If I had five cents’ worth, I could make a dollar an hour—I know I could.”
The clerk listened and looked. He was good enough to say that I didn’t talk like a bum, though I looked like one. He inquired anxiously 457 if I was “off my hook.” At last he said: “By ——! I’ve been on the Bowery a long time, and haven’t been sold once. If you’re a skin-game man, I’ll throw up my job!” I got the acid.
Then I played the same game in a tailor-shop for rags and in a hardware store for some polishing-paste. The stock cost fifteen cents—on credit.