XIII
The following morning, James Lawrence Challoner did that which he had never done since his marriage: he started out to look for a job. Something, which he could not explain, was forcing him to try to get work; but had he been given to self-analysis, he would have known that it was Miriam's wrath in her adversity that had kindled into flame the flickering, dying spark of his manhood.
Until now, Challoner had assumed that work was to be had by any man for the mere asking of it; but he was surprised, startled, shocked, to find that it was not; that is to say, the clerkships and such work as he thought would be to his liking; and each night he returned to his cheerless, lonely room in the tenement, sore, leg-weary, after a long unsuccessful quest. Work? Little by little he was learning that there was no work "lying round loose" for the James Lawrence Challoners of this world! And yet he persevered.
"I must find something to do," he kept saying over and over again to himself.
And then one day at the end of two weeks he found himself at the end of a long line of Italian labourers who were seeking employment.
When the foreman came to Challoner, he called out in surprise:—
"What do you want?"
"Work!" replied the man inside the shell of Challoner.
"With the 'ginneys'?"