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CHAPTER 23
Early in the fall Jurgis set out for Chicago again.
All the joy went out of tramping as soon as a man could not keep warm in the hay; and,
like many thousands of others, he deluded himself with the hope that by coming early
he could avoid the rush.
He brought fifteen dollars with him, hidden away in one of his shoes, a sum which had
been saved from the saloon-keepers, not so much by his conscience, as by the fear
which filled him at the thought of being out of work in the city in the winter time.
He traveled upon the railroad with several other men, hiding in freight cars at night,
and liable to be thrown off at any time, regardless of the speed of the train.
When he reached the city he left the rest, for he had money and they did not, and he
meant to save himself in this fight.
He would bring to it all the skill that practice had brought him, and he would
stand, whoever fell.
On fair nights he would sleep in the park or on a truck or an empty barrel or box,
and when it was rainy or cold he would stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodging-
house, or pay three cents for the
privileges of a "squatter" in a tenement hallway.
He would eat at free lunches, five cents a meal, and never a cent more--so he might
keep alive for two months and more, and in that time he would surely find a job.
He would have to bid farewell to his summer cleanliness, of course, for he would come
out of the first night's lodging with his clothes alive with vermin.
There was no place in the city where he could wash even his face, unless he went
down to the lake front--and there it would soon be all ice.
First he went to the steel mill and the harvester works, and found that his places
there had been filled long ago.
He was careful to keep away from the stockyards--he was a single man now, he
told himself, and he meant to stay one, to have his wages for his own when he got a
job.
He began the long, weary round of factories and warehouses, tramping all day, from one
end of the city to the other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred men ahead
of him.
He watched the newspapers, too--but no longer was he to be taken in by smooth-
spoken agents. He had been told of all those tricks while
"on the road."
In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, after nearly a month of
seeking.
It was a call for a hundred laborers, and though he thought it was a "fake," he went
because the place was near by.
He found a line of men a block long, but as a wagon chanced to come out of an alley and
break the line, he saw his chance and sprang to seize a place.
Men threatened him and tried to throw him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance
to attract a policeman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the latter
interfered it would be to "fire" them all.
An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted a big Irishman behind a desk.
"Ever worked in Chicago before?" the man inquired; and whether it was a good angel
that put it into Jurgis's mind, or an intuition of his sharpened wits, he was
moved to answer, "No, sir."
"Where do you come from?" "Kansas City, sir."
"Any references?" "No, sir.
I'm just an unskilled man.
I've got good arms." "I want men for hard work--it's all
underground, digging tunnels for telephones.
Maybe it won't suit you."
"I'm willing, sir--anything for me. What's the pay?"
"Fifteen cents an hour." "I'm willing, sir."
"All right; go back there and give your name."
So within half an hour he was at work, far underneath the streets of the city.
The tunnel was a peculiar one for telephone wires; it was about eight feet high, and
with a level floor nearly as wide.
It had innumerable branches--a perfect spider web beneath the city; Jurgis walked
over half a mile with his gang to the place where they were to work.
Stranger yet, the tunnel was lighted by electricity, and upon it was laid a double-
tracked, narrow-gauge railroad! But Jurgis was not there to ask questions,
and he did not give the matter a thought.
It was nearly a year afterward that he finally learned the meaning of this whole
affair.
The City Council had passed a quiet and innocent little bill allowing a company to
construct telephone conduits under the city streets; and upon the strength of this, a
great corporation had proceeded to tunnel
all Chicago with a system of railway freight-subways.
In the city there was a combination of employers, representing hundreds of
millions of capital, and formed for the purpose of crushing the labor unions.
The chief union which troubled it was the teamsters'; and when these freight tunnels
were completed, connecting all the big factories and stores with the railroad
depots, they would have the teamsters' union by the throat.
Now and then there were rumors and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen, and once there
was a committee to investigate--but each time another small fortune was paid over,
and the rumors died away; until at last the
city woke up with a start to find the work completed.
There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it was found that the city records had been
falsified and other crimes committed, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got into
jail--figuratively speaking.
The aldermen declared that they had had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that
the main entrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of one of them.
It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so he knew that he had an all-
winter job.
He was so rejoiced that he treated himself to a spree that night, and with the balance
of his money he hired himself a place in a tenement room, where he slept upon a big
homemade straw mattress along with four other workingmen.
This was one dollar a week, and for four more he got his food in a boardinghouse
near his work.
This would leave him four dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him.
At the outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also to buy a pair of heavy
boots, since his shoes were falling to pieces, and a flannel shirt, since the one
he had worn all summer was in shreds.
He spent a week meditating whether or not he should also buy an overcoat.
There was one belonging to a Hebrew collar button peddler, who had died in the room
next to him, and which the landlady was holding for her rent; in the end, however,
Jurgis decided to do without it, as he was
to be underground by day and in bed at night.
This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more quickly than ever
into the saloons.
From now on Jurgis worked from seven o'clock until half-past five, with half an
hour for dinner; which meant that he never saw the sunlight on weekdays.
In the evenings there was no place for him to go except a barroom; no place where
there was light and warmth, where he could hear a little music or sit with a companion
and talk.
He had now no home to go to; he had no affection left in his life--only the
pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice.
On Sundays the churches were open--but where was there a church in which an ill-
smelling workingman, with vermin crawling upon his neck, could sit without seeing
people edge away and look annoyed?
He had, of course, his corner in a close though unheated room, with a window opening
upon a blank wall two feet away; and also he had the bare streets, with the winter
gales sweeping through them; besides this
he had only the saloons--and, of course, he had to drink to stay in them.
If he drank now and then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice
or a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money, or to look at a
beer-stained pink "sporting paper," with pictures of murderers and half-naked women.
It was for such pleasures as these that he spent his money; and such was his life
during the six weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago, to
enable them to break the grip of their teamsters' union.
In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given to the welfare of the
laborers.
On an average, the tunneling cost a life a day and several manglings; it was seldom,
however, that more than a dozen or two men heard of any one accident.
The work was all done by the new boring machinery, with as little blasting as
possible; but there would be falling rocks and crushed supports, and premature
explosions--and in addition all the dangers of railroading.
So it was that one night, as Jurgis was on his way out with his gang, an engine and a
loaded car dashed round one of the innumerable right-angle branches and struck
him upon the shoulder, hurling him against
the concrete wall and knocking him senseless.
When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging of the bell of an ambulance.
He was lying in it, covered by a blanket, and it was threading its way slowly through
the holiday-shopping crowds.
They took him to the county hospital, where a young surgeon set his arm; then he was
washed and laid upon a bed in a ward with a score or two more of maimed and mangled
men.
Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was the pleasantest
Christmas he had had in America.
Every year there were scandals and investigations in this institution, the
newspapers charging that doctors were allowed to try fantastic experiments upon
the patients; but Jurgis knew nothing of
this--his only complaint was that they used to feed him upon tinned meat, which no man
who had ever worked in Packingtown would feed to his dog.
Jurgis had often wondered just who ate the canned corned beef and "roast beef" of the
stockyards; now he began to understand-- that it was what you might call "graft
meat," put up to be sold to public
officials and contractors, and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates
of institutions, "shantymen" and gangs of railroad laborers.
Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two weeks.
This did not mean that his arm was strong and that he was able to go back to work,
but simply that he could get along without further attention, and that his place was
needed for some one worse off than he.
That he was utterly helpless, and had no means of keeping himself alive in the
meantime, was something which did not concern the hospital authorities, nor any
one else in the city.
As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had just paid for his last
week's board and his room rent, and spent nearly all the balance of his Saturday's
pay.
He had less than seventy-five cents in his pockets, and a dollar and a half due him
for the day's work he had done before he was hurt.
He might possibly have sued the company, and got some damages for his injuries, but
he did not know this, and it was not the company's business to tell him.
He went and got his pay and his tools, which he left in a pawnshop for fifty
cents.
Then he went to his landlady, who had rented his place and had no other for him;
and then to his boardinghouse keeper, who looked him over and questioned him.
As he must certainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had boarded there
only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it would not be worth the risk to keep
him on trust.
So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful plight.
It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was falling, beating into his face.
He had no overcoat, and no place to go, and two dollars and sixty-five cents in his
pocket, with the certainty that he could not earn another cent for months.
The snow meant no chance to him now; he must walk along and see others shoveling,
vigorous and active--and he with his left arm bound to his side!
He could not hope to tide himself over by odd jobs of loading trucks; he could not
even sell newspapers or carry satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any
rival.
Words could not paint the terror that came over him as he realized all this.
He was like a wounded animal in the forest; he was forced to compete with his enemies
upon unequal terms.
There would be no consideration for him because of his weakness--it was no one's
business to help him in such distress, to make the fight the least bit easier for
him.
Even if he took to begging, he would be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to
discover in good time.
In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting out of the awful
cold.
He went into one of the saloons he had been wont to frequent and bought a drink, and
then stood by the fire shivering and waiting to be ordered out.
According to an unwritten law, the buying a drink included the privilege of loafing for
just so long; then one had to buy another drink or move on.
That Jurgis was an old customer entitled him to a somewhat longer stop; but then he
had been away two weeks, and was evidently "on the bum."
He might plead and tell his "hard luck story," but that would not help him much; a
saloon-keeper who was to be moved by such means would soon have his place jammed to
the doors with "hoboes" on a day like this.
So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel.
He was so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef stew, an indulgence
which cut short his stay by a considerable time.
When he was again told to move on, he made his way to a "tough" place in the "Levee"
district, where now and then he had gone with a certain rat-eyed Bohemian workingman
of his acquaintance, seeking a woman.
It was Jurgis's vain hope that here the proprietor would let him remain as a
"sitter."
In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers would often allow one or two
forlorn-looking bums who came in covered with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the
fire and look miserable to attract custom.
A workingman would come in, feeling cheerful after his day's work was over, and
it would trouble him to have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose; and
so he would call out: "Hello, Bub, what's the matter?
You look as if you'd been up against it!"
And then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say,
"Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up."
And so they would drink together, and if the *** was sufficiently wretched-
looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to
discover that they were from the same
country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit
down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk--and before they got through the
saloon-keeper would have taken in a dollar.
All of this might seem diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for
it.
He was in the same plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and
misrepresent his product.
If he does not, some one else will; and the saloon-keeper, unless he is also an
alderman, is apt to be in debt to the big brewers, and on the verge of being sold
out.
The market for "sitters" was glutted that afternoon, however, and there was no place
for Jurgis.
In all he had to spend six nickels in keeping a shelter over him that frightful
day, and then it was just dark, and the station houses would not open until
midnight!
At the last place, however, there was a bartender who knew him and liked him, and
let him doze at one of the tables until the boss came back; and also, as he was going
out, the man gave him a tip--on the next
block there was a religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing, and
hundreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.
Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the door would open
at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran, a block, and hid awhile in a doorway
and then ran again, and so on until the hour.
At the end he was all but frozen, and fought his way in with the rest of the
throng (at the risk of having his arm broken again), and got close to the big
stove.
By eight o'clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought to have been
flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at the door men were packed tight
enough to walk upon.
There were three elderly gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young lady who
played the piano in front.
First they sang a hymn, and then one of the three, a tall, smooth-shaven man, very
thin, and wearing black spectacles, began an address.
Jurgis heard smatterings of it, for the reason that terror kept him awake--he knew
that he snored abominably, and to have been put out just then would have been like a
sentence of death to him.
The evangelist was preaching "sin and redemption," the infinite grace of God and
His pardon for human frailty.
He was very much in earnest, and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his
soul filled with hatred.
What did he know about sin and suffering-- with his smooth, black coat and his neatly
starched collar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in his pocket--and
lecturing men who were struggling for their
lives, men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger and cold!--This, of
course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these men were out of touch with the life
they discussed, that they were unfitted to
solve its problems; nay, they themselves were part of the problem--they were part of
the order established that was crushing men down and beating them!
They were of the triumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire,
and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach to hungry men, and the
hungry men must be humble and listen!
They were trying to save their souls--and who but a fool could fail to see that all
that was the matter with their souls was that they had not been able to get a decent
existence for their bodies?
At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out into the snow,
muttering curses upon the few traitors who had got repentance and gone up on the
platform.
It was yet an hour before the station house would open, and Jurgis had no overcoat--and
was weak from a long illness. During that hour he nearly perished.
He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood moving at all--and then he came back
to the station house and found a crowd blocking the street before the door!
This was in the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of "hard
times," and the newspapers were reporting the shutting down of factories every day--
it was estimated that a million and a half
men were thrown out of work before the spring.
So all the hiding places of the city were crowded, and before that station house door
men fought and tore each other like savage beasts.
When at last the place was jammed and they shut the doors, half the crowd was still
outside; and Jurgis, with his helpless arm, was among them.
There was no choice then but to go to a lodging-house and spend another dime.
It really broke his heart to do this, at half-past twelve o'clock, after he had
wasted the night at the meeting and on the street.
He would be turned out of the lodging-house promptly at seven--they had the shelves
which served as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, and any man who was
slow about obeying orders could be tumbled to the floor.
This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen of them.
At the end of six days every cent of Jurgis' money was gone; and then he went
out on the streets to beg for his life. He would begin as soon as the business of
the city was moving.
He would sally forth from a saloon, and, after making sure there was no policeman in
sight, would approach every likely-looking person who passed him, telling his woeful
story and pleading for a nickel or a dime.
Then when he got one, he would dart round the corner and return to his base to get
warm; and his victim, seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he would never
give a cent to a beggar again.
The victim never paused to ask where else Jurgis could have gone under the
circumstances--where he, the victim, would have gone.
At the saloon Jurgis could not only get more food and better food than he could buy
in any restaurant for the same money, but a drink in the bargain to warm him up.
Also he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and could chat with a companion until
he was as warm as toast. At the saloon, too, he felt at home.
Part of the saloon-keeper's business was to offer a home and refreshments to beggars in
exchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there any one else in
the whole city who would do this--would the victim have done it himself?
Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar.
He was just out of the hospital, and desperately sick-looking, and with a
helpless arm; also he had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully.
But, alas, it was again the case of the honest merchant, who finds that the genuine
and unadulterated article is driven to the wall by the artistic counterfeit.
Jurgis, as a beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in competition with
organized and scientific professionalism.
He was just out of the hospital--but the story was worn threadbare, and how could he
prove it?
He had his arm in a sling--and it was a device a regular beggar's little boy would
have scorned.
He was pale and shivering--but they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied the
art of chattering their teeth.
As to his being without an overcoat, among them you would meet men you could swear had
on nothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cotton trousers--so cleverly had
they concealed the several suits of all- wool underwear beneath.
Many of these professional mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, and
thousands of dollars in the bank; some of them had retired upon their earnings, and
gone into the business of fitting out and
doctoring others, or working children at the trade.
There were some who had both their arms bound tightly to their sides, and padded
stumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup for them.
There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselves upon a wheeled platform--some
who had been favored with blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs.
Some less fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned themselves, or had
brought horrible sores upon themselves with chemicals; you might suddenly encounter
upon the street a man holding out to you a
finger rotting and discolored with gangrene--or one with livid scarlet wounds
half escaped from their filthy bandages.
These desperate ones were the dregs of the city's cesspools, wretches who hid at night
in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackle tenements, in "stale-beer dives"
and *** joints, with abandoned women in
the last stages of the harlot's progress-- women who had been kept by Chinamen and
turned away at last to die.
Every day the police net would drag hundreds of them off the streets, and in
the detention hospital you might see them, herded together in a miniature inferno,
with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and
leprous with disease, laughing, shouting, screaming in all stages of drunkenness,
barking like dogs, gibbering like apes, raving and tearing themselves in delirium.
>
CHAPTER 24
In the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to make the price of a lodging,
and of a drink every hour or two, under penalty of freezing to death.
Day after day he roamed about in the arctic cold, his soul filled full of bitterness
and despair.
He saw the world of civilization then more plainly than ever he had seen it before; a
world in which nothing counted but brutal might, an order devised by those who
possessed it for the subjugation of those who did not.
He was one of the latter; and all outdoors, all life, was to him one colossal prison,
which he paced like a pent-up tiger, trying one bar after another, and finding them all
beyond his power.
He had lost in the fierce battle of greed, and so was doomed to be exterminated; and
all society was busied to see that he did not escape the sentence.
Everywhere that he turned were prison bars, and hostile eyes following him; the well-
fed, sleek policemen, from whose glances he shrank, and who seemed to grip their clubs
more tightly when they saw him; the saloon-
keepers, who never ceased to watch him while he was in their places, who were
jealous of every moment he lingered after he had paid his money; the hurrying throngs
upon the streets, who were deaf to his
entreaties, oblivious of his very existence--and savage and contemptuous when
he forced himself upon them. They had their own affairs, and there was
no place for him among them.
There was no place for him anywhere--every direction he turned his gaze, this fact was
forced upon him: Everything was built to express it to him: the residences, with
their heavy walls and bolted doors, and
basement windows barred with iron; the great warehouses filled with the products
of the whole world, and guarded by iron shutters and heavy gates; the banks with
their unthinkable billions of wealth, all buried in safes and vaults of steel.
And then one day there befell Jurgis the one adventure of his life.
It was late at night, and he had failed to get the price of a lodging.
Snow was falling, and he had been out so long that he was covered with it, and was
chilled to the bone.
He was working among the theater crowds, flitting here and there, taking large
chances with the police, in his desperation half hoping to be arrested.
When he saw a blue-coat start toward him, however, his heart failed him, and he
dashed down a side street and fled a couple of blocks.
When he stopped again he saw a man coming toward him, and placed himself in his path.
"Please, sir," he began, in the usual formula, "will you give me the price of a
lodging?
I've had a broken arm, and I can't work, and I've not a cent in my pocket.
I'm an honest working-man, sir, and I never begged before!
It's not my fault, sir--"
Jurgis usually went on until he was interrupted, but this man did not
interrupt, and so at last he came to a breathless stop.
The other had halted, and Jurgis suddenly noticed that he stood a little unsteadily.
"Whuzzat you say?" he queried suddenly, in a thick voice.
Jurgis began again, speaking more slowly and distinctly; before he was half through
the other put out his hand and rested it upon his shoulder.
"Poor ole chappie!" he said.
"Been up--hic--up--against it, hey?" Then he lurched toward Jurgis, and the hand
upon his shoulder became an arm about his neck.
"Up against it myself, ole sport," he said.
"She's a hard ole world." They were close to a lamppost, and Jurgis
got a glimpse of the other. He was a young fellow--not much over
eighteen, with a handsome boyish face.
He wore a silk hat and a rich soft overcoat with a fur collar; and he smiled at Jurgis
with benignant sympathy. "I'm hard up, too, my goo' fren'," he said.
"I've got cruel parents, or I'd set you up.
Whuzzamatter whizyer?" "I've been in the hospital."
"Hospital!" exclaimed the young fellow, still smiling sweetly, "thass too bad!
Same's my Aunt Polly--hic--my Aunt Polly's in the hospital, too--ole auntie's been
havin' twins! Whuzzamatter *** you?"
"I've got a broken arm--" Jurgis began.
"So," said the other, sympathetically. "That ain't so bad--you get over that.
I wish somebody'd break my arm, ole chappie--damfidon't!
Then they'd treat me better--hic--hole me up, ole sport!
Whuzzit you wamme do?" "I'm hungry, sir," said Jurgis.
"Hungry!
Why don't you hassome supper?" "I've got no money, sir."
"No money! Ho, ho--less be chums, ole boy--jess like
me!
No money, either--a'most busted! Why don't you go home, then, same's me?"
"I haven't any home," said Jurgis. "No home!
Stranger in the city, hey?
Goo' God, thass bad! Better come home wiz me--yes, by Harry,
thass the trick, you'll come home an' hassome supper--hic--wiz me!
Awful lonesome--nobody home!
Guv'ner gone abroad--Bubby on's honeymoon-- Polly havin' twins--every damn soul gone
away! Nuff--hic--nuff to drive a feller to drink,
I say!
Only ole Ham standin' by, passin' plates-- damfican eat like that, no sir!
The club for me every time, my boy, I say.
But then they won't lemme sleep there-- guv'ner's orders, by Harry--home every
night, sir! Ever hear anythin' like that?
'Every mornin' do?'
I asked him. 'No, sir, every night, or no allowance at
all, sir.' Thass my guv'ner--'nice as nails, by Harry!
Tole ole Ham to watch me, too--servants spyin' on me--whuzyer think that, my fren'?
A nice, quiet--hic--goodhearted young feller like me, an' his daddy can't go to
Europe--hup!--an' leave him in peace!
Ain't that a shame, sir? An' I gotter go home every evenin' an' miss
all the fun, by Harry! Thass whuzzamatter now--thass why I'm here!
Hadda come away an' leave Kitty--hic--left her cryin', too--whujja think of that, ole
sport? 'Lemme go, Kittens,' says I--'come early
an' often--I go where duty--hic--calls me.
Farewell, farewell, my own true love-- farewell, farewehell, my--own true--love!'"
This last was a song, and the young gentleman's voice rose mournful and
wailing, while he swung upon Jurgis's neck.
The latter was glancing about nervously, lest some one should approach.
They were still alone, however.
"But I came all right, all right," continued the youngster, aggressively, "I
can--hic--I can have my own way when I want it, by Harry--Freddie Jones is a hard man
to handle when he gets goin'!
'No, sir,' says I, 'by thunder, and I don't need anybody goin' home with me, either--
whujja take me for, hey? Think I'm drunk, dontcha, hey?--I know you!
But I'm no more drunk than you are, Kittens,' says I to her.
And then says she, 'Thass true, Freddie dear' (she's a smart one, is Kitty), 'but
I'm stayin' in the flat, an' you're goin' out into the cold, cold night!'
'Put it in a pome, lovely Kitty,' says I.
'No jokin', Freddie, my boy,' says she. 'Lemme call a cab now, like a good dear'--
but I can call my own cabs, dontcha fool yourself--and I know what I'm a-doin', you
bet!
Say, my fren', whatcha say--willye come home an' see me, an' hassome supper?
Come 'long like a good feller--don't be haughty!
You're up against it, same as me, an' you can unerstan' a feller; your heart's in the
right place, by Harry--come 'long, ole chappie, an' we'll light up the house, an'
have some fizz, an' we'll raise hell, we will--whoop-la!
S'long's I'm inside the house I can do as I please--the guv'ner's own very orders,
b'God!
Hip! hip!" They had started down the street, arm in
arm, the young man pushing Jurgis along, half dazed.
Jurgis was trying to think what to do--he knew he could not pass any crowded place
with his new acquaintance without attracting attention and being stopped.
It was only because of the falling snow that people who passed here did not notice
anything wrong. Suddenly, therefore, Jurgis stopped.
"Is it very far?" he inquired.
"Not very," said the other, "Tired, are you, though?
Well, we'll ride--whatcha say? Good!
Call a cab!"
And then, gripping Jurgis tight with one hand, the young fellow began searching his
pockets with the other. "You call, ole sport, an' I'll pay," he
suggested.
"How's that, hey?" And he pulled out from somewhere a big roll
of bills.
It was more money than Jurgis had ever seen in his life before, and he stared at it
with startled eyes. "Looks like a lot, hey?" said Master
Freddie, fumbling with it.
"Fool you, though, ole chappie--they're all little ones!
I'll be busted in one week more, sure thing--word of honor.
An' not a cent more till the first--hic-- guv'ner's orders--hic--not a cent, by
Harry! Nuff to set a feller crazy, it is.
I sent him a cable, this af'noon--thass one reason more why I'm goin' home.
'Hangin' on the verge of starvation,' I says--'for the honor of the family--hic--
sen' me some bread.
Hunger will compel me to join you-- Freddie.'
Thass what I wired him, by Harry, an' I mean it--I'll run away from school, b'God,
if he don't sen' me some."
After this fashion the young gentleman continued to prattle on--and meantime
Jurgis was trembling with excitement.
He might grab that *** of bills and be out of sight in the darkness before the other
could collect his wits. Should he do it?
What better had he to hope for, if he waited longer?
But Jurgis had never committed a crime in his life, and now he hesitated half a
second too long.
"Freddie" got one bill loose, and then stuffed the rest back into his trousers'
pocket. "Here, ole man," he said, "you take it."
He held it out fluttering.
They were in front of a saloon; and by the light of the window Jurgis saw that it was
a hundred-dollar bill! "You take it," the other repeated.
"Pay the cabbie an' keep the change--I've got--hic--no head for business!
Guv'ner says so hisself, an' the guv'ner knows--the guv'ner's got a head for
business, you bet!
'All right, guv'ner,' I told him, 'you run the show, and I'll take the tickets!'
An' so he set Aunt Polly to watch me--hic-- an' now Polly's off in the hospital havin'
twins, an' me out raisin' Cain!
Hello, there! Hey!
Call him!" A cab was driving by; and Jurgis sprang and
called, and it swung round to the curb.
Master Freddie clambered in with some difficulty, and Jurgis had started to
follow, when the driver shouted: "Hi, there!
Get out--you!"
Jurgis hesitated, and was half obeying; but his companion broke out: "Whuzzat?
Whuzzamatter wiz you, hey?" And the cabbie subsided, and Jurgis climbed
in.
Then Freddie gave a number on the Lake Shore Drive, and the carriage started away.
The youngster leaned back and snuggled up to Jurgis, murmuring contentedly; in half a
minute he was sound asleep, Jurgis sat shivering, speculating as to whether he
might not still be able to get hold of the roll of bills.
He was afraid to try to go through his companion's pockets, however; and besides
the cabbie might be on the watch.
He had the hundred safe, and he would have to be content with that.
At the end of half an hour or so the cab stopped.
They were out on the waterfront, and from the east a freezing gale was blowing off
the ice-bound lake. "Here we are," called the cabbie, and
Jurgis awakened his companion.
Master Freddie sat up with a start. "Hello!" he said.
"Where are we? Whuzzis?
Who are you, hey?
Oh, yes, sure nuff! Mos' forgot you--hic--ole chappie!
Home, are we? Lessee!
Br-r-r--it's cold!
Yes--come 'long--we're home--it ever so-- hic--humble!"
Before them there loomed an enormous granite pile, set far back from the street,
and occupying a whole block.
By the light of the driveway lamps Jurgis could see that it had towers and huge
gables, like a medieval castle.
He thought that the young fellow must have made a mistake--it was inconceivable to him
that any person could have a home like a hotel or the city hall.
But he followed in silence, and they went up the long flight of steps, arm in arm.
"There's a button here, ole sport," said Master Freddie.
"Hole my arm while I find her!
Steady, now--oh, yes, here she is! Saved!"
A bell rang, and in a few seconds the door was opened.
A man in blue livery stood holding it, and gazing before him, silent as a statue.
They stood for a moment blinking in the light.
Then Jurgis felt his companion pulling, and he stepped in, and the blue automaton
closed the door.
Jurgis's heart was beating wildly; it was a bold thing for him to do--into what strange
unearthly place he was venturing he had no idea.
Aladdin entering his cave could not have been more excited.
The place where he stood was dimly lighted; but he could see a vast hall, with pillars
fading into the darkness above, and a great staircase opening at the far end of it.
The floor was of tesselated marble, smooth as glass, and from the walls strange shapes
loomed out, woven into huge portieres in rich, harmonious colors, or gleaming from
paintings, wonderful and mysterious-looking
in the half-light, purple and red and golden, like sunset glimmers in a shadowy
forest.
The man in livery had moved silently toward them; Master Freddie took off his hat and
handed it to him, and then, letting go of Jurgis' arm, tried to get out of his
overcoat.
After two or three attempts he accomplished this, with the lackey's help, and meantime
a second man had approached, a tall and portly personage, solemn as an executioner.
He bore straight down upon Jurgis, who shrank away nervously; he seized him by the
arm without a word, and started toward the door with him.
Then suddenly came Master Freddie's voice, "Hamilton!
My fren' will remain wiz me." The man paused and half released Jurgis.
"Come 'long ole chappie," said the other, and Jurgis started toward him.
"Master Frederick!" exclaimed the man.
"See that the cabbie--hic--is paid," was the other's response; and he linked his arm
in Jurgis'. Jurgis was about to say, "I have the money
for him," but he restrained himself.
The stout man in uniform signaled to the other, who went out to the cab, while he
followed Jurgis and his young master. They went down the great hall, and then
turned.
Before them were two huge doors. "Hamilton," said Master Freddie.
"Well, sir?" said the other. "Whuzzamatter wizze dinin'-room doors?"
"Nothing is the matter, sir."
"Then why dontcha openum?" The man rolled them back; another vista
lost itself in the darkness.
"Lights," commanded Master Freddie; and the butler pressed a button, and a flood of
brilliant incandescence streamed from above, half-blinding Jurgis.
He stared; and little by little he made out the great apartment, with a domed ceiling
from which the light poured, and walls that were one enormous painting--nymphs and
dryads dancing in a flower-strewn glade--
Diana with her hounds and horses, dashing headlong through a mountain streamlet--a
group of maidens bathing in a forest pool-- all life-size, and so real that Jurgis
thought that it was some work of enchantment, that he was in a dream palace.
Then his eye passed to the long table in the center of the hall, a table black as
ebony, and gleaming with wrought silver and gold.
In the center of it was a huge carven bowl, with the glistening gleam of ferns and the
red and purple of rare orchids, glowing from a light hidden somewhere in their
midst.
"This's the dinin' room," observed Master Freddie.
"How you like it, hey, ole sport?"
He always insisted on having an answer to his remarks, leaning over Jurgis and
smiling into his face. Jurgis liked it.
"Rummy ole place to feed in all 'lone, though," was Freddie's comment--"rummy's
hell! Whuzya think, hey?"
Then another idea occurred to him and he went on, without waiting: "Maybe you never
saw anythin--hic--like this 'fore? Hey, ole chappie?"
"No," said Jurgis.
"Come from country, maybe--hey?" "Yes," said Jurgis.
"Aha! I thosso! Lossa folks from country never saw such a
place.
Guv'ner brings 'em--free show--hic--reg'lar circus!
Go home tell folks about it. Ole man Jones's place--Jones the packer--
beef-trust man.
Made it all out of hogs, too, damn ole scoundrel.
Now we see where our pennies go--rebates, an' private car lines--hic--by Harry!
Bully place, though--worth seein'!
Ever hear of Jones the packer, hey, ole chappie?"
Jurgis had started involuntarily; the other, whose sharp eyes missed nothing,
demanded: "Whuzzamatter, hey?
Heard of him?" And Jurgis managed to stammer out: "I have
worked for him in the yards." "What!" cried Master Freddie, with a yell.
"You! In the yards?
Ho, ho! Why, say, thass good!
Shake hands on it, ole man--by Harry! Guv'ner ought to be here--glad to see you.
Great fren's with the men, guv'ner--labor an' capital, commun'ty 'f int'rests, an'
all that--hic! Funny things happen in this world, don't
they, ole man?
Hamilton, lemme interduce you--fren' the family--ole fren' the guv'ner's--works in
the yards. Come to spend the night wiz me, Hamilton--
have a hot time.
Me fren', Mr.--whuzya name, ole chappie? Tell us your name."
"Rudkus--Jurgis Rudkus." "My fren', Mr. Rednose, Hamilton--shake
han's."
The stately butler bowed his head, but made not a sound; and suddenly Master Freddie
pointed an eager finger at him. "I know whuzzamatter wiz you, Hamilton--lay
you a dollar I know!
You think--hic--you think I'm drunk! Hey, now?"
And the butler again bowed his head.
"Yes, sir," he said, at which Master Freddie hung tightly upon Jurgis's neck and
went into a fit of laughter.
"Hamilton, you damn ole scoundrel," he roared, "I'll 'scharge you for impudence,
you see 'f I don't! Ho, ho, ho!
I'm drunk!
Ho, ho!" The two waited until his fit had spent
itself, to see what new whim would seize him.
"Whatcha wanta do?" he queried suddenly.
"Wanta see the place, ole chappie? Wamme play the guv'ner--show you roun'?
State parlors--Looee Cans--Looee Sez-- chairs cost three thousand apiece.
Tea room Maryanntnet--picture of shepherds dancing--Ruysdael--twenty-three thousan'!
Ballroom--balc'ny pillars--hic--imported-- special ship--sixty-eight thousan'!
Ceilin' painted in Rome--whuzzat feller's name, Hamilton--Mattatoni?
Macaroni? Then this place--silver bowl--Benvenuto
Cellini--rummy ole ***!
An' the organ--thirty thousan' dollars, sir--starter up, Hamilton, let Mr. Rednose
hear it. No--never mind--clean forgot--says he's
hungry, Hamilton--less have some supper.
Only--hic--don't less have it here--come up to my place, ole sport--nice an' cosy.
This way--steady now, don't slip on the floor.
Hamilton, we'll have a cole spread, an' some fizz--don't leave out the fizz, by
Harry. We'll have some of the eighteen-thirty
Madeira.
Hear me, sir?" "Yes, sir," said the butler, "but, Master
Frederick, your father left orders--" And Master Frederick drew himself up to a
stately height.
"My father's orders were left to me--hic-- an' not to you," he said.
Then, clasping Jurgis tightly by the neck, he staggered out of the room; on the way
another idea occurred to him, and he asked: "Any--hic--cable message for me, Hamilton?"
"No, sir," said the butler.
"Guv'ner must be travelin'. An' how's the twins, Hamilton?"
"They are doing well, sir."
"Good!" said Master Freddie; and added fervently: "God bless 'em, the little
lambs!"
They went up the great staircase, one step at a time; at the top of it there gleamed
at them out of the shadows the figure of a nymph crouching by a fountain, a figure
ravishingly beautiful, the flesh warm and glowing with the hues of life.
Above was a huge court, with domed roof, the various apartments opening into it.
The butler had paused below but a few minutes to give orders, and then followed
them; now he pressed a button, and the hall blazed with light.
He opened a door before them, and then pressed another button, as they staggered
into the apartment. It was fitted up as a study.
In the center was a mahogany table, covered with books, and smokers' implements; the
walls were decorated with college trophies and colors--flags, posters, photographs and
knickknacks--tennis rackets, canoe paddles, golf clubs, and polo sticks.
An enormous moose head, with horns six feet across, faced a buffalo head on the
opposite wall, while bear and tiger skins covered the polished floor.
There were lounging chairs and sofas, window seats covered with soft cushions of
fantastic designs; there was one corner fitted in Persian fashion, with a huge
canopy and a jeweled lamp beneath.
Beyond, a door opened upon a bedroom, and beyond that was a swimming pool of the
purest marble, that had cost about forty thousand dollars.
Master Freddie stood for a moment or two, gazing about him; then out of the next room
a dog emerged, a monstrous bulldog, the most hideous object that Jurgis had ever
laid eyes upon.
He yawned, opening a mouth like a dragon's; and he came toward the young man, wagging
his tail. "Hello, Dewey!" cried his master.
"Been havin' a snooze, ole boy?
Well, well--hello there, whuzzamatter?" (The dog was snarling at Jurgis.)
"Why, Dewey--this' my fren', Mr. Rednose-- ole fren' the guv'ner's!
Mr. Rednose, Admiral Dewey; shake han's-- hic.
Ain't he a daisy, though--blue ribbon at the New York show--eighty-five hundred at a
clip!
How's that, hey?" The speaker sank into one of the big
armchairs, and Admiral Dewey crouched beneath it; he did not snarl again, but he
never took his eyes off Jurgis.
He was perfectly sober, was the Admiral. The butler had closed the door, and he
stood by it, watching Jurgis every second.
Now there came footsteps outside, and, as he opened the door a man in livery entered,
carrying a folding table, and behind him two men with covered trays.
They stood like statues while the first spread the table and set out the contents
of the trays upon it.
There were cold pates, and thin slices of meat, tiny bread and butter sandwiches with
the crust cut off, a bowl of sliced peaches and cream (in January), little fancy cakes,
pink and green and yellow and white, and half a dozen ice-cold bottles of wine.
"Thass the stuff for you!" cried Master Freddie, exultantly, as he spied them.
"Come 'long, ole chappie, move up."
And he seated himself at the table; the waiter pulled a cork, and he took the
bottle and poured three glasses of its contents in succession down his throat.
Then he gave a long-drawn sigh, and cried again to Jurgis to seat himself.
The butler held the chair at the opposite side of the table, and Jurgis thought it
was to keep him out of it; but finally he understand that it was the other's
intention to put it under him, and so he sat down, cautiously and mistrustingly.
Master Freddie perceived that the attendants embarrassed him, and he remarked
with a nod to them, "You may go."
They went, all save the butler. "You may go too, Hamilton," he said.
"Master Frederick--" the man began. "Go!" cried the youngster, angrily.
"Damn you, don't you hear me?"
The man went out and closed the door; Jurgis, who was as sharp as he, observed
that he took the key out of the lock, in order that he might peer through the
keyhole.
Master Frederick turned to the table again. "Now," he said, "go for it."
Jurgis gazed at him doubtingly. "Eat!" cried the other.
"Pile in, ole chappie!"
"Don't you want anything?" Jurgis asked.
"Ain't hungry," was the reply--"only thirsty.
Kitty and me had some candy--you go on."
So Jurgis began, without further parley.
He ate as with two shovels, his fork in one hand and his knife in the other; when he
once got started his wolf-hunger got the better of him, and he did not stop for
breath until he had cleared every plate.
"Gee ***!" said the other, who had been watching him in wonder.
Then he held Jurgis the bottle.
"Lessee you drink now," he said; and Jurgis took the bottle and turned it up to his
mouth, and a wonderfully unearthly liquid ecstasy poured down his throat, tickling
every nerve of him, thrilling him with joy.
He drank the very last drop of it, and then he gave vent to a long-drawn "Ah!"
"Good stuff, hey?" said Freddie, sympathetically; he had leaned back in the
big chair, putting his arm behind his head and gazing at Jurgis.
And Jurgis gazed back at him.
He was clad in spotless evening dress, was Freddie, and looked very handsome--he was a
beautiful boy, with light golden hair and the head of an Antinous.
He smiled at Jurgis confidingly, and then started talking again, with his blissful
insouciance.
This time he talked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in the course of the speech he
told Jurgis all of his family history.
His big brother Charlie was in love with the guileless maiden who played the part of
"Little Bright-Eyes" in "The Kaliph of Kamskatka."
He had been on the verge of marrying her once, only "the guv'ner" had sworn to
disinherit him, and had presented him with a sum that would stagger the imagination,
and that had staggered the virtue of "Little Bright-Eyes."
Now Charlie had got leave from college, and had gone away in his automobile on the next
best thing to a honeymoon.
"The guv'ner" had made threats to disinherit another of his children also,
sister Gwendolen, who had married an Italian marquis with a string of titles and
a dueling record.
They lived in his chateau, or rather had, until he had taken to firing the breakfast
dishes at her; then she had cabled for help, and the old gentleman had gone over
to find out what were his Grace's terms.
So they had left Freddie all alone, and he with less than two thousand dollars in his
pocket.
Freddie was up in arms and meant serious business, as they would find in the end--if
there was no other way of bringing them to terms he would have his "Kittens" wire that
she was about to marry him, and see what happened then.
So the cheerful youngster rattled on, until he was tired out.
He smiled his sweetest smile at Jurgis, and then he closed his eyes, sleepily.
Then he opened them again, and smiled once more, and finally closed them and forgot to
open them.
For several minutes Jurgis sat perfectly motionless, watching him, and reveling in
the strange sensation of the champagne.
Once he stirred, and the dog growled; after that he sat almost holding his breath--
until after a while the door of the room opened softly, and the butler came in.
He walked toward Jurgis upon tiptoe, scowling at him; and Jurgis rose up, and
retreated, scowling back.
So until he was against the wall, and then the butler came close, and pointed toward
the door. "Get out of here!" he whispered.
Jurgis hesitated, giving a glance at Freddie, who was snoring softly.
"If you do, you son of a--" hissed the butler, "I'll mash in your face for you
before you get out of here!"
And Jurgis wavered but an instant more. He saw "Admiral Dewey" coming up behind the
man and growling softly, to back up his threats.
Then he surrendered and started toward the door.
They went out without a sound, and down the great echoing staircase, and through the
dark hall.
At the front door he paused, and the butler strode close to him.
"Hold up your hands," he snarled. Jurgis took a step back, clinching his one
well fist.
"What for?" he cried; and then understanding that the fellow proposed to
search him, he answered, "I'll see you in hell first."
"Do you want to go to jail?" demanded the butler, menacingly.
"I'll have the police--" "Have 'em!" roared Jurgis, with fierce
passion.
"But you won't put your hands on me till you do!
I haven't touched anything in your damned house, and I'll not have you touch me!"
So the butler, who was terrified lest his young master should waken, stepped suddenly
to the door, and opened it.
"Get out of here!" he said; and then as Jurgis passed through the opening, he gave
him a ferocious kick that sent him down the great stone steps at a run, and landed him
sprawling in the snow at the bottom.
>
CHAPTER 25
Jurgis got up, wild with rage, but the door was shut and the great castle was dark and
impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit into
him, and he turned and went away at a run.
When he stopped again it was because he was coming to frequented streets and did not
wish to attract attention. In spite of that last humiliation, his
heart was thumping fast with triumph.
He had come out ahead on that deal! He put his hand into his trousers' pocket
every now and then, to make sure that the precious hundred-dollar bill was still
there.
Yet he was in a plight--a curious and even dreadful plight, when he came to realize
it. He had not a single cent but that one bill!
And he had to find some shelter that night he had to change it!
Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the problem.
There was no one he could go to for help-- he had to manage it all alone.
To get it changed in a lodging-house would be to take his life in his hands--he would
almost certainly be robbed, and perhaps murdered, before morning.
He might go to some hotel or railroad depot and ask to have it changed; but what would
they think, seeing a "bum" like him with a hundred dollars?
He would probably be arrested if he tried it; and what story could he tell?
On the morrow Freddie Jones would discover his loss, and there would be a hunt for
him, and he would lose his money.
The only other plan he could think of was to try in a saloon.
He might pay them to change it, if it could not be done otherwise.
He began peering into places as he walked; he passed several as being too crowded--
then finally, chancing upon one where the bartender was all alone, he gripped his
hands in sudden resolution and went in.
"Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?" he demanded.
The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of a prize fighter, and a three
weeks' stubble of hair upon it.
He stared at Jurgis. "What's that youse say?" he demanded.
"I said, could you change me a hundred- dollar bill?"
"Where'd youse get it?" he inquired incredulously.
"Never mind," said Jurgis; "I've got it, and I want it changed.
I'll pay you if you'll do it."
The other stared at him hard. "Lemme see it," he said.
"Will you change it?" Jurgis demanded, gripping it tightly in his
pocket.
"How the hell can I know if it's good or not?" retorted the bartender.
"Whatcher take me for, hey?"
Then Jurgis slowly and warily approached him; he took out the bill, and fumbled it
for a moment, while the man stared at him with hostile eyes across the counter.
Then finally he handed it over.
The other took it, and began to examine it; he smoothed it between his fingers, and
held it up to the light; he turned it over, and upside down, and edgeways.
It was new and rather stiff, and that made him dubious.
Jurgis was watching him like a cat all the time.
"Humph," he said, finally, and gazed at the stranger, sizing him up--a ragged, ill-
smelling ***, with no overcoat and one arm in a sling--and a hundred-dollar bill!
"Want to buy anything?" he demanded.
"Yes," said Jurgis, "I'll take a glass of beer."
"All right," said the other, "I'll change it."
And he put the bill in his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of beer, and set
it on the counter.
Then he turned to the cash register, and punched up five cents, and began to pull
money out of the drawer. Finally, he faced Jurgis, counting it out--
two dimes, a quarter, and fifty cents.
"There," he said. For a second Jurgis waited, expecting to
see him turn again. "My ninety-nine dollars," he said.
"What ninety-nine dollars?" demanded the bartender.
"My change!" he cried--"the rest of my hundred!"
"Go on," said the bartender, "you're nutty!"
And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes.
For an instant horror reigned in him-- black, paralyzing, awful horror, clutching
him at the heart; and then came rage, in surging, blinding floods--he screamed
aloud, and seized the glass and hurled it at the other's head.
The man ducked, and it missed him by half an inch; he rose again and faced Jurgis,
who was vaulting over the bar with his one well arm, and dealt him a smashing blow in
the face, hurling him backward upon the floor.
Then, as Jurgis scrambled to his feet again and started round the counter after him, he
shouted at the top of his voice, "Help! help!"
Jurgis seized a bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the bartender made a leap he
hurled the missile at him with all his force.
It just grazed his head, and shivered into a thousand pieces against the post of the
door. Then Jurgis started back, rushing at the
man again in the middle of the room.
This time, in his blind frenzy, he came without a bottle, and that was all the
bartender wanted--he met him halfway and floored him with a sledgehammer drive
between the eyes.
An instant later the screen doors flew open, and two men rushed in--just as Jurgis
was getting to his feet again, foaming at the mouth with rage, and trying to tear his
broken arm out of its bandages.
"Look out!" shouted the bartender. "He's got a knife!"
Then, seeing that the two were disposed to join the fray, he made another rush at
Jurgis, and knocked aside his feeble defense and sent him tumbling again; and
the three flung themselves upon him, rolling and kicking about the place.
A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender yelled once more--"Look out
for his knife!"
Jurgis had fought himself half to his knees, when the policeman made a leap at
him, and cracked him across the face with his club.
Though the blow staggered him, the wild- beast frenzy still blazed in him, and he
got to his feet, lunging into the air.
Then again the club descended, full upon his head, and he dropped like a log to the
floor.
The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, waiting for him to try to rise
again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and put his hand to his head.
"Christ!" he said, "I thought I was done for that time.
Did he cut me?" "Don't see anything, Jake," said the
policeman.
"What's the matter with him?" "Just crazy drunk," said the other.
"A lame duck, too--but he 'most got me under the bar.
Youse had better call the wagon, Billy."
"No," said the officer. "He's got no more fight in him, I guess--
and he's only got a block to go." He twisted his hand in Jurgis's collar and
*** at him.
"Git up here, you!" he commanded.
But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind the bar, and after stowing the
hundred-dollar bill away in a safe hiding place, came and poured a glass of water
over Jurgis.
Then, as the latter began to moan feebly, the policeman got him to his feet and
dragged him out of the place.
The station house was just around the corner, and so in a few minutes Jurgis was
in a cell.
He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the balance moaning in torment, with a
blinding headache and a racking thirst. Now and then he cried aloud for a drink of
water, but there was no one to hear him.
There were others in that same station house with split heads and a fever; there
were hundreds of them in the great city, and tens of thousands of them in the great
land, and there was no one to hear any of them.
In the morning Jurgis was given a cup of water and a piece of bread, and then
hustled into a patrol wagon and driven to the nearest police court.
He sat in the pen with a score of others until his turn came.
The bartender--who proved to be a well- known bruiser--was called to the stand.
He took the oath and told his story.
The prisoner had come into his saloon after midnight, fighting drunk, and had ordered a
glass of beer and tendered a dollar bill in payment.
He had been given ninety-five cents' change, and had demanded ninety-nine
dollars more, and before the plaintiff could even answer had hurled the glass at
him and then attacked him with a bottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the place.
Then the prisoner was sworn--a forlorn object, haggard and unshorn, with an arm
done up in a filthy bandage, a cheek and head cut, and bloody, and one eye purplish
black and entirely closed.
"What have you to say for yourself?" queried the magistrate.
"Your Honor," said Jurgis, "I went into his place and asked the man if he could change
me a hundred-dollar bill.
And he said he would if I bought a drink. I gave him the bill and then he wouldn't
give me the change." The magistrate was staring at him in
perplexity.
"You gave him a hundred-dollar bill!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, your Honor," said Jurgis. "Where did you get it?"
"A man gave it to me, your Honor."
"A man? What man, and what for?"
"A young man I met upon the street, your Honor.
I had been begging."
There was a titter in the courtroom; the officer who was holding Jurgis put up his
hand to hide a smile, and the magistrate smiled without trying to hide it.
"It's true, your Honor!" cried Jurgis, passionately.
"You had been drinking as well as begging last night, had you not?" inquired the
magistrate.
"No, your Honor--" protested Jurgis. "I--"
"You had not had anything to drink?" "Why, yes, your Honor, I had--"
"What did you have?"
"I had a bottle of something--I don't know what it was--something that burned--"
There was again a laugh round the courtroom, stopping suddenly as the
magistrate looked up and frowned.
"Have you ever been arrested before?" he asked abruptly.
The question took Jurgis aback. "I--I--" he stammered.
"Tell me the truth, now!" commanded the other, sternly.
"Yes, your Honor," said Jurgis. "How often?"
"Only once, your Honor."
"What for?" "For knocking down my boss, your Honor.
I was working in the stockyards, and he--" "I see," said his Honor; "I guess that will
do.
You ought to stop drinking if you can't control yourself.
Ten days and costs. Next case."
Jurgis gave vent to a cry of dismay, cut off suddenly by the policeman, who seized
him by the collar.
He was *** out of the way, into a room with the convicted prisoners, where he sat
and wept like a child in his impotent rage.
It seemed monstrous to him that policemen and judges should esteem his word as
nothing in comparison with the bartender's- -poor Jurgis could not know that the owner
of the saloon paid five dollars each week
to the policeman alone for Sunday privileges and general favors--nor that the
pugilist bartender was one of the most trusted henchmen of the Democratic leader
of the district, and had helped only a few
months before to hustle out a record- breaking vote as a testimonial to the
magistrate, who had been made the target of odious kid-gloved reformers.
Jurgis was driven out to the Bridewell for the second time.
In his tumbling around he had hurt his arm again, and so could not work, but had to be
attended by the physician.
Also his head and his eye had to be tied up--and so he was a pretty-looking object
when, the second day after his arrival, he went out into the exercise court and
encountered--Jack Duane!
The young fellow was so glad to see Jurgis that he almost hugged him.
"By God, if it isn't 'the Stinker'!" he cried.
"And what is it--have you been through a sausage machine?"
"No," said Jurgis, "but I've been in a railroad wreck and a fight."
And then, while some of the other prisoners gathered round he told his wild story; most
of them were incredulous, but Duane knew that Jurgis could never have made up such a
yarn as that.
"Hard luck, old man," he said, when they were alone; "but maybe it's taught you a
lesson." "I've learned some things since I saw you
last," said Jurgis mournfully.
Then he explained how he had spent the last summer, "hoboing it," as the phrase was.
"And you?" he asked finally. "Have you been here ever since?"
"Lord, no!" said the other.
"I only came in the day before yesterday. It's the second time they've sent me up on
a trumped-up charge--I've had hard luck and can't pay them what they want.
Why don't you quit Chicago with me, Jurgis?"
"I've no place to go," said Jurgis, sadly. "Neither have I," replied the other,
laughing lightly.
"But we'll wait till we get out and see." In the Bridewell Jurgis met few who had
been there the last time, but he met scores of others, old and young, of exactly the
same sort.
It was like breakers upon a beach; there was new water, but the wave looked just the
same.
He strolled about and talked with them, and the biggest of them told tales of their
prowess, while those who were weaker, or younger and inexperienced, gathered round
and listened in admiring silence.
The last time he was there, Jurgis had thought of little but his family; but now
he was free to listen to these men, and to realize that he was one of them--that their
point of view was his point of view, and
that the way they kept themselves alive in the world was the way he meant to do it in
the future.
And so, when he was turned out of prison again, without a penny in his pocket, he
went straight to Jack Duane.
He went full of humility and gratitude; for Duane was a gentleman, and a man with a
profession--and it was remarkable that he should be willing to throw in his lot with
a humble workingman, one who had even been a beggar and a ***.
Jurgis could not see what help he could be to him; but he did not understand that a
man like himself--who could be trusted to stand by any one who was kind to him--was
as rare among criminals as among any other class of men.
The address Jurgis had was a garret room in the Ghetto district, the home of a pretty
little French girl, Duane's mistress, who sewed all day, and eked out her living by
prostitution.
He had gone elsewhere, she told Jurgis--he was afraid to stay there now, on account of
the police.
The new address was a cellar dive, whose proprietor said that he had never heard of
Duane; but after he had put Jurgis through a catechism he showed him a back stairs
which led to a "fence" in the rear of a
pawnbroker's shop, and thence to a number of assignation rooms, in one of which Duane
was hiding.
Duane was glad to see him; he was without a cent of money, he said, and had been
waiting for Jurgis to help him get some.
He explained his plan--in fact he spent the day in laying bare to his friend the
criminal world of the city, and in showing him how he might earn himself a living in
it.
That winter he would have a hard time, on account of his arm, and because of an
unwonted fit of activity of the police; but so long as he was unknown to them he would
be safe if he were careful.
Here at "Papa" Hanson's (so they called the old man who kept the dive) he might rest at
ease, for "Papa" Hanson was "square"--would stand by him so long as he paid, and gave
him an hour's notice if there were to be a police raid.
Also Rosensteg, the pawnbroker, would buy anything he had for a third of its value,
and guarantee to keep it hidden for a year.
There was an oil stove in the little cupboard of a room, and they had some
supper; and then about eleven o'clock at night they sallied forth together, by a
rear entrance to the place, Duane armed with a slingshot.
They came to a residence district, and he sprang up a lamppost and blew out the
light, and then the two dodged into the shelter of an area step and hid in silence.
Pretty soon a man came by, a workingman-- and they let him go.
Then after a long interval came the heavy tread of a policeman, and they held their
breath till he was gone.
Though half-frozen, they waited a full quarter of an hour after that--and then
again came footsteps, walking briskly. Duane nudged Jurgis, and the instant the
man had passed they rose up.
Duane stole out as silently as a shadow, and a second later Jurgis heard a thud and
a stifled cry.
He was only a couple of feet behind, and he leaped to stop the man's mouth, while Duane
held him fast by the arms, as they had agreed.
But the man was limp and showed a tendency to fall, and so Jurgis had only to hold him
by the collar, while the other, with swift fingers, went through his pockets--ripping
open, first his overcoat, and then his
coat, and then his vest, searching inside and outside, and transferring the contents
into his own pockets.
At last, after feeling of the man's fingers and in his necktie, Duane whispered,
"That's all!" and they dragged him to the area and dropped him in.
Then Jurgis went one way and his friend the other, walking briskly.
The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the "swag."
There was a gold watch, for one thing, with a chain and locket; there was a silver
pencil, and a matchbox, and a handful of small change, and finally a card-case.
This last Duane opened feverishly--there were letters and checks, and two theater-
tickets, and at last, in the back part, a *** of bills.
He counted them--there was a twenty, five tens, four fives, and three ones.
Duane drew a long breath. "That lets us out!" he said.
After further examination, they burned the card-case and its contents, all but the
bills, and likewise the picture of a little girl in the locket.
Then Duane took the watch and trinkets downstairs, and came back with sixteen
dollars. "The old scoundrel said the case was
filled," he said.
"It's a lie, but he knows I want the money."
They divided up the spoils, and Jurgis got as his share fifty-five dollars and some
change.
He protested that it was too much, but the other had agreed to divide even.
That was a good haul, he said, better than average.
When they got up in the morning, Jurgis was sent out to buy a paper; one of the
pleasures of committing a crime was the reading about it afterward.
"I had a pal that always did it," Duane remarked, laughing--"until one day he read
that he had left three thousand dollars in a lower inside pocket of his party's vest!"
There was a half-column account of the robbery--it was evident that a gang was
operating in the neighborhood, said the paper, for it was the third within a week,
and the police were apparently powerless.
The victim was an insurance agent, and he had lost a hundred and ten dollars that did
not belong to him.
He had chanced to have his name marked on his shirt, otherwise he would not have been
identified yet.
His assailant had hit him too hard, and he was suffering from concussion of the brain;
and also he had been half-frozen when found, and would lose three fingers on his
right hand.
The enterprising newspaper reporter had taken all this information to his family,
and told how they had received it.
Since it was Jurgis's first experience, these details naturally caused him some
worriment; but the other laughed coolly--it was the way of the game, and there was no
helping it.
Before long Jurgis would think no more of it than they did in the yards of knocking
out a bullock.
"It's a case of us or the other fellow, and I say the other fellow, every time," he
observed. "Still," said Jurgis, reflectively, "he
never did us any harm."
"He was doing it to somebody as hard as he could, you can be sure of that," said his
friend.
Duane had already explained to Jurgis that if a man of their trade were known he would
have to work all the time to satisfy the demands of the police.
Therefore it would be better for Jurgis to stay in hiding and never be seen in public
with his pal. But Jurgis soon got very tired of staying
in hiding.
In a couple of weeks he was feeling strong and beginning to use his arm, and then he
could not stand it any longer.
Duane, who had done a job of some sort by himself, and made a truce with the powers,
brought over Marie, his little French girl, to share with him; but even that did not
avail for long, and in the end he had to
give up arguing, and take Jurgis out and introduce him to the saloons and "sporting
houses" where the big crooks and "holdup men" hung out.
And so Jurgis got a glimpse of the high- class criminal world of Chicago.
The city, which was owned by an oligarchy of business men, being nominally ruled by
the people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the
transfer of power.
Twice a year, in the spring and fall elections, millions of dollars were
furnished by the business men and expended by this army; meetings were held and clever
speakers were hired, bands played and
rockets sizzled, tons of documents and reservoirs of drinks were distributed, and
tens of thousands of votes were bought for cash.
And this army of graft had, of course, to be maintained the year round.
The leaders and organizers were maintained by the business men directly--aldermen and
legislators by means of bribes, party officials out of the campaign funds,
lobbyists and corporation lawyers in the
form of salaries, contractors by means of jobs, labor union leaders by subsidies, and
newspaper proprietors and editors by advertisements.
The rank and file, however, were either foisted upon the city, or else lived off
the population directly.
There was the police department, and the fire and water departments, and the whole
balance of the civil list, from the meanest office boy to the head of a city
department; and for the horde who could
find no room in these, there was the world of vice and crime, there was license to
seduce, to swindle and plunder and prey.
The law forbade Sunday drinking; and this had delivered the saloon-keepers into the
hands of the police, and made an alliance between them necessary.
The law forbade prostitution; and this had brought the "madames" into the combination.
It was the same with the gambling-house keeper and the poolroom man, and the same
with any other man or woman who had a means of getting "graft," and was willing to pay
over a share of it: the green-goods man and
the highwayman, the pickpocket and the sneak thief, and the receiver of stolen
goods, the seller of adulterated milk, of stale fruit and diseased meat, the
proprietor of unsanitary tenements, the
fake doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the "pushcart man," the prize fighter and
the professional slugger, the race-track "tout," the procurer, the white-slave
agent, and the expert seducer of young girls.
All of these agencies of corruption were banded together, and leagued in blood
brotherhood with the politician and the police; more often than not they were one
and the same person,--the police captain
would own the brothel he pretended to raid, the politician would open his headquarters
in his saloon.
"Hinkydink" or "Bathhouse John," or others of that ilk, were proprietors of the most
notorious dives in Chicago, and also the "gray wolves" of the city council, who gave
away the streets of the city to the
business men; and those who patronized their places were the gamblers and prize
fighters who set the law at defiance, and the burglars and holdup men who kept the
whole city in terror.
On election day all these powers of vice and crime were one power; they could tell
within one per cent what the vote of their district would be, and they could change it
at an hour's notice.
A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation upon the streets; and now
suddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had entered into a world where money and
all the good things of life came freely.
He was introduced by his friend to an Irishman named "Buck" Halloran, who was a
political "worker" and on the inside of things.
This man talked with Jurgis for a while, and then told him that he had a little plan
by which a man who looked like a workingman might make some easy money; but it was a
private affair, and had to be kept quiet.
Jurgis expressed himself as agreeable, and the other took him that afternoon (it was
Saturday) to a place where city laborers were being paid off.
The paymaster sat in a little booth, with a pile of envelopes before him, and two
policemen standing by.
Jurgis went, according to directions, and gave the name of "Michael O'Flaherty," and
received an envelope, which he took around the corner and delivered to Halloran, who
was waiting for him in a saloon.
Then he went again; and gave the name of "Johann Schmidt," and a third time, and
give the name of "Serge Reminitsky."
Halloran had quite a list of imaginary workingmen, and Jurgis got an envelope for
each one.
For this work he received five dollars, and was told that he might have it every week,
so long as he kept quiet.
As Jurgis was excellent at keeping quiet, he soon won the trust of "Buck" Halloran,
and was introduced to others as a man who could be depended upon.
This acquaintance was useful to him in another way, also before long Jurgis made
his discovery of the meaning of "pull," and just why his boss, Connor, and also the
pugilist bartender, had been able to send him to jail.
One night there was given a ball, the "benefit" of "One-eyed Larry," a lame man
who played the violin in one of the big "high-class" houses of prostitution on
Clark Street, and was a wag and a popular character on the "Levee."
This ball was held in a big dance hall, and was one of the occasions when the city's
powers of debauchery gave themselves up to madness.
Jurgis attended and got half insane with drink, and began quarreling over a girl;
his arm was pretty strong by then, and he set to work to clean out the place, and
ended in a cell in the police station.
The police station being crowded to the doors, and stinking with "bums," Jurgis did
not relish staying there to sleep off his liquor, and sent for Halloran, who called
up the district leader and had Jurgis
bailed out by telephone at four o'clock in the morning.
When he was arraigned that same morning, the district leader had already seen the
clerk of the court and explained that Jurgis Rudkus was a decent fellow, who had
been indiscreet; and so Jurgis was fined
ten dollars and the fine was "suspended"-- which meant that he did not have to pay for
it, and never would have to pay it, unless somebody chose to bring it up against him
in the future.
Among the people Jurgis lived with now money was valued according to an entirely
different standard from that of the people of Packingtown; yet, strange as it may
seem, he did a great deal less drinking than he had as a workingman.
He had not the same provocations of exhaustion and hopelessness; he had now
something to work for, to struggle for.
He soon found that if he kept his wits about him, he would come upon new
opportunities; and being naturally an active man, he not only kept sober himself,
but helped to steady his friend, who was a
good deal fonder of both wine and women than he.
One thing led to another.
In the saloon where Jurgis met "Buck" Halloran he was sitting late one night with
Duane, when a "country customer" (a buyer for an out-of-town merchant) came in, a
little more than half "piped."
There was no one else in the place but the bartender, and as the man went out again
Jurgis and Duane followed him; he went round the corner, and in a dark place made
by a combination of the elevated railroad
and an unrented building, Jurgis leaped forward and shoved a revolver under his
nose, while Duane, with his hat pulled over his eyes, went through the man's pockets
with lightning fingers.
They got his watch and his "***," and were round the corner again and into the saloon
before he could shout more than once.
The bartender, to whom they had tipped the wink, had the cellar door open for them,
and they vanished, making their way by a secret entrance to a brothel next door.
From the roof of this there was access to three similar places beyond.
By means of these passages the customers of any one place could be gotten out of the
way, in case a falling out with the police chanced to lead to a raid; and also it was
necessary to have a way of getting a girl out of reach in case of an emergency.
Thousands of them came to Chicago answering advertisements for "servants" and "factory
hands," and found themselves trapped by fake employment agencies, and locked up in
a ***-house.
It was generally enough to take all their clothes away from them; but sometimes they
would have to be "doped" and kept prisoners for weeks; and meantime their parents might
be telegraphing the police, and even coming on to see why nothing was done.
Occasionally there was no way of satisfying them but to let them search the place to
which the girl had been traced.
For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty out of the
hundred and thirty odd dollars that the pair secured; and naturally this put them
on friendly terms with him, and a few days
later he introduced them to a little "sheeny" named Goldberger, one of the
"runners" of the "sporting house" where they had been hidden.
After a few drinks Goldberger began, with some hesitation, to narrate how he had had
a quarrel over his best girl with a professional "cardsharp," who had hit him
in the jaw.
The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, and if he was found some night with his head
cracked there would be no one to care very much.
Jurgis, who by this time would cheerfully have cracked the heads of all the gamblers
in Chicago, inquired what would be coming to him; at which the Jew became still more
confidential, and said that he had some
tips on the New Orleans races, which he got direct from the police captain of the
district, whom he had got out of a bad scrape, and who "stood in" with a big
syndicate of horse owners.
Duane took all this in at once, but Jurgis had to have the whole race-track situation
explained to him before he realized the importance of such an opportunity.
There was the gigantic Racing Trust.
It owned the legislatures in every state in which it did business; it even owned some
of the big newspapers, and made public opinion--there was no power in the land
that could oppose it unless, perhaps, it were the Poolroom Trust.
It built magnificent racing parks all over the country, and by means of enormous
purses it lured the people to come, and then it organized a gigantic shell game,
whereby it plundered them of hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
Horse racing had once been a sport, but nowadays it was a business; a horse could
be "doped" and doctored, undertrained or overtrained; it could be made to fall at
any moment--or its gait could be broken by
lashing it with the whip, which all the spectators would take to be a desperate
effort to keep it in the lead.
There were scores of such tricks; and sometimes it was the owners who played them
and made fortunes, sometimes it was the jockeys and trainers, sometimes it was
outsiders, who bribed them--but most of the time it was the chiefs of the trust.
Now for instance, they were having winter racing in New Orleans and a syndicate was
laying out each day's program in advance, and its agents in all the Northern cities
were "milking" the poolrooms.
The word came by long-distance telephone in a cipher code, just a little while before
each race; and any man who could get the secret had as good as a fortune.
If Jurgis did not believe it, he could try it, said the little Jew--let them meet at a
certain house on the morrow and make a test.
Jurgis was willing, and so was Duane, and so they went to one of the high-class
poolrooms where brokers and merchants gambled (with society women in a private
room), and they put up ten dollars each
upon a horse called "Black Beldame," a six to one shot, and won.
For a secret like that they would have done a good many sluggings--but the next day
Goldberger informed them that the offending gambler had got wind of what was coming to
him, and had skipped the town.
There were ups and downs at the business; but there was always a living, inside of a
jail, if not out of it.
Early in April the city elections were due, and that meant prosperity for all the
powers of graft.
Jurgis, hanging round in dives and gambling houses and brothels, met with the heelers
of both parties, and from their conversation he came to understand all the
ins and outs of the game, and to hear of a
number of ways in which he could make himself useful about election time.
"Buck" Halloran was a "Democrat," and so Jurgis became a Democrat also; but he was
not a bitter one--the Republicans were good fellows, too, and were to have a pile of
money in this next campaign.
At the last election the Republicans had paid four dollars a vote to the Democrats'
three; and "Buck" Halloran sat one night playing cards with Jurgis and another man,
who told how Halloran had been charged with
the job voting a "bunch" of thirty-seven newly landed Italians, and how he, the
narrator, had met the Republican worker who was after the very same gang, and how the
three had effected a bargain, whereby the
Italians were to vote half and half, for a glass of beer apiece, while the balance of
the fund went to the conspirators!
Not long after this, Jurgis, wearying of the risks and vicissitudes of miscellaneous
crime, was moved to give up the career for that of a politician.
Just at this time there was a tremendous uproar being raised concerning the alliance
between the criminals and the police.
For the criminal graft was one in which the business men had no direct part--it was
what is called a "side line," carried by the police.
"Wide open" gambling and debauchery made the city pleasing to "trade," but
burglaries and holdups did not.
One night it chanced that while Jack Duane was drilling a safe in a clothing store he
was caught red-handed by the night watchman, and turned over to a policeman,
who chanced to know him well, and who took
the responsibility of letting him make his escape.
Such a howl from the newspapers followed this that Duane was slated for sacrifice,
and barely got out of town in time.
And just at that juncture it happened that Jurgis was introduced to a man named Harper
whom he recognized as the night watchman at Brown's, who had been instrumental in
making him an American citizen, the first year of his arrival at the yards.
The other was interested in the coincidence, but did not remember Jurgis--
he had handled too many "green ones" in his time, he said.
He sat in a dance hall with Jurgis and Halloran until one or two in the morning,
exchanging experiences.
He had a long story to tell of his quarrel with the superintendent of his department,
and how he was now a plain workingman, and a good union man as well.
It was not until some months afterward that Jurgis understood that the quarrel with the
superintendent had been prearranged, and that Harper was in reality drawing a salary
of twenty dollars a week from the packers
for an inside report of his union's secret proceedings.
The yards were seething with agitation just then, said the man, speaking as a unionist.
The people of Packingtown had borne about all that they would bear, and it looked as
if a strike might begin any week.
After this talk the man made inquiries concerning Jurgis, and a couple of days
later he came to him with an interesting proposition.
He was not absolutely certain, he said, but he thought that he could get him a regular
salary if he would come to Packingtown and do as he was told, and keep his mouth shut.
Harper--"Bush" Harper, he was called--was a right-hand man of Mike Scully, the
Democratic boss of the stockyards; and in the coming election there was a peculiar
situation.
There had come to Scully a proposition to nominate a certain rich brewer who lived
upon a swell boulevard that skirted the district, and who coveted the big badge and
the "honorable" of an alderman.
The brewer was a Jew, and had no brains, but he was harmless, and would put up a
rare campaign fund. Scully had accepted the offer, and then
gone to the Republicans with a proposition.
He was not sure that he could manage the "sheeny," and he did not mean to take any
chances with his district; let the Republicans nominate a certain obscure but
amiable friend of Scully's, who was now
setting tenpins in the cellar of an Ashland Avenue saloon, and he, Scully, would elect
him with the "sheeny's" money, and the Republicans might have the glory, which was
more than they would get otherwise.
In return for this the Republicans would agree to put up no candidate the following
year, when Scully himself came up for reelection as the other alderman from the
ward.
To this the Republicans had assented at once; but the hell of it was--so Harper
explained--that the Republicans were all of them fools--a man had to be a fool to be a
Republican in the stockyards, where Scully was king.
And they didn't know how to work, and of course it would not do for the Democratic
workers, the noble redskins of the War Whoop League, to support the Republican
openly.
The difficulty would not have been so great except for another fact--there had been a
curious development in stockyards politics in the last year or two, a new party having
leaped into being.
They were the Socialists; and it was a devil of a mess, said "Bush" Harper.
The one image which the word "Socialist" brought to Jurgis was of poor little
Tamoszius Kuszleika, who had called himself one, and would go out with a couple of
other men and a soap-box, and shout himself hoarse on a street corner Saturday nights.
Tamoszius had tried to explain to Jurgis what it was all about, but Jurgis, who was
not of an imaginative turn, had never quite got it straight; at present he was content
with his companion's explanation that the
Socialists were the enemies of American institutions--could not be bought, and
would not combine or make any sort of a "dicker."
Mike Scully was very much worried over the opportunity which his last deal gave to
them--the stockyards Democrats were furious at the idea of a rich capitalist for their
candidate, and while they were changing
they might possibly conclude that a Socialist firebrand was preferable to a
Republican bum.
And so right here was a chance for Jurgis to make himself a place in the world,
explained "Bush" Harper; he had been a union man, and he was known in the yards as
a workingman; he must have hundreds of
acquaintances, and as he had never talked politics with them he might come out as a
Republican now without exciting the least suspicion.
There were barrels of money for the use of those who could deliver the goods; and
Jurgis might count upon Mike Scully, who had never yet gone back on a friend.
Just what could he do?
Jurgis asked, in some perplexity, and the other explained in detail.
To begin with, he would have to go to the yards and work, and he mightn't relish
that; but he would have what he earned, as well as the rest that came to him.
He would get active in the union again, and perhaps try to get an office, as he,
Harper, had; he would tell all his friends the good points of Doyle, the Republican
nominee, and the bad ones of the "sheeny";
and then Scully would furnish a meeting place, and he would start the "Young Men's
Republican Association," or something of that sort, and have the rich brewer's best
beer by the hogshead, and fireworks and speeches, just like the War Whoop League.
Surely Jurgis must know hundreds of men who would like that sort of fun; and there
would be the regular Republican leaders and workers to help him out, and they would
deliver a big enough majority on election day.
When he had heard all this explanation to the end, Jurgis demanded: "But how can I
get a job in Packingtown?
I'm blacklisted." At which "Bush" Harper laughed.
"I'll attend to that all right," he said. And the other replied, "It's a go, then;
I'm your man."
So Jurgis went out to the stockyards again, and was introduced to the political lord of
the district, the boss of Chicago's mayor.
It was Scully who owned the brick-yards and the dump and the ice pond--though Jurgis
did not know it.
It was Scully who was to blame for the unpaved street in which Jurgis's child had
been drowned; it was Scully who had put into office the magistrate who had first
sent Jurgis to jail; it was Scully who was
principal stockholder in the company which had sold him the ramshackle tenement, and
then robbed him of it.
But Jurgis knew none of these things--any more than he knew that Scully was but a
tool and puppet of the packers. To him Scully was a mighty power, the
"biggest" man he had ever met.
He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shook.
He had a brief talk with his visitor, watching him with his ratlike eyes, and
making up his mind about him; and then he gave him a note to Mr. Harmon, one of the
head managers of Durham's--
"The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I would like you to
find him a good place, for important reasons.
He was once indiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to overlook that."
Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this.
"What does he mean by 'indiscreet'?" he asked.
"I was blacklisted, sir," said Jurgis. At which the other frowned.
"Blacklisted?" he said.
"How do you mean?" And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment.
He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist.
"I--that is--I had difficulty in getting a place," he stammered.
"What was the matter?" "I got into a quarrel with a foreman--not
my own boss, sir--and struck him."
"I see," said the other, and meditated for a few moments.
"What do you wish to do?" he asked.
"Anything, sir," said Jurgis--"only I had a broken arm this winter, and so I have to be
careful." "How would it suit you to be a night
watchman?"
"That wouldn't do, sir. I have to be among the men at night."
"I see--politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?"
"Yes, sir," said Jurgis.
And Mr. Harmon called a timekeeper and said, "Take this man to Pat Murphy and tell
him to find room for him somehow."
And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where, in the days gone by,
he had come begging for a job.
Now he walked jauntily, and smiled to himself, seeing the frown that came to the
boss's face as the timekeeper said, "Mr. Harmon says to put this man on."
It would overcrowd his department and spoil the record he was trying to make--but he
said not a word except "All right."
And so Jurgis became a workingman once more; and straightway he sought out his old
friends, and joined the union, and began to "root" for "Scotty" Doyle.
Doyle had done him a good turn once, he explained, and was really a bully chap;
Doyle was a workingman himself, and would represent the workingmen--why did they want
to vote for a millionaire "sheeny," and
what the hell had Mike Scully ever done for them that they should back his candidates
all the time?
And meantime Scully had given Jurgis a note to the Republican leader of the ward, and
he had gone there and met the crowd he was to work with.
Already they had hired a big hall, with some of the brewer's money, and every night
Jurgis brought in a dozen new members of the "Doyle Republican Association."
Pretty soon they had a grand opening night; and there was a brass band, which marched
through the streets, and fireworks and bombs and red lights in front of the hall;
and there was an enormous crowd, with two
overflow meetings--so that the pale and trembling candidate had to recite three
times over the little speech which one of Scully's henchmen had written, and which he
had been a month learning by heart.
Best of all, the famous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks, presidential
candidate, rode out in an automobile to discuss the sacred privileges of American
citizenship, and protection and prosperity for the American workingman.
His inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of half a column in all the morning
newspapers, which also said that it could be stated upon excellent authority that the
unexpected popularity developed by Doyle,
the Republican candidate for alderman, was giving great anxiety to Mr. Scully, the
chairman of the Democratic City Committee.
The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight procession came off,
with the members of the Doyle Republican Association all in red capes and hats, and
free beer for every voter in the ward--the
best beer ever given away in a political campaign, as the whole electorate
testified.
During this parade, and at innumerable cart-tail meetings as well, Jurgis labored
tirelessly.
He did not make any speeches--there were lawyers and other experts for that--but he
helped to manage things; distributing notices and posting placards and bringing
out the crowds; and when the show was on he attended to the fireworks and the beer.
Thus in the course of the campaign he handled many hundreds of dollars of the
Hebrew brewer's money, administering it with naive and touching fidelity.
Toward the end, however, he learned that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the
"boys," because he compelled them either to make a poorer showing than he or to do
without their share of the pie.
After that Jurgis did his best to please them, and to make up for the time he had
lost before he discovered the extra bungholes of the campaign barrel.
He pleased Mike Scully, also.
On election morning he was out at four o'clock, "getting out the vote"; he had a
two-horse carriage to ride in, and he went from house to house for his friends, and
escorted them in triumph to the polls.
He voted half a dozen times himself, and voted some of his friends as often; he
brought bunch after bunch of the newest foreigners--Lithuanians, Poles, Bohemians,
Slovaks--and when he had put them through
the mill he turned them over to another man to take to the next polling place.
When Jurgis first set out, the captain of the precinct gave him a hundred dollars,
and three times in the course of the day he came for another hundred, and not more than
twenty-five out of each lot got stuck in his own pocket.
The balance all went for actual votes, and on a day of Democratic landslides they
elected "Scotty" Doyle, the ex-tenpin setter, by nearly a thousand plurality--and
beginning at five o'clock in the afternoon,
and ending at three the next morning, Jurgis treated himself to a most unholy and
horrible "jag."
Nearly every one else in Packingtown did the same, however, for there was universal
exultation over this triumph of popular government, this crushing defeat of an
arrogant plutocrat by the power of the common people.
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