The name on a passing ambulance directed my steps to Roosevelt
Hospital at the close of business, a few nights later. I don't think
I wanted to nail that very poor lie of Sandy's but I knew Waldron, the
Superintendent, and thought I'd invite him to dinner and joke him a bit
about his new whisky ward.
Waldron was in, but could not go to dinner. Worst time in the day for
him to get off, he said.
"By the way," he continued, "too bad you couldn't give Sandy McWhiffle a
job--he would have it you'd take him, so we let him go, with a dose of
whisky to carry him through. But you lazy devils get down so late it
didn't last him, and he fainted in the street on the way back. Queer
fellow, but I liked him--his sense of humour hasn't disappeared as it
has with most of his class."
Perhaps my sense of humour had disappeared, but I saw no fun in my
rehearsed jokes of a few minutes previous.
"Is he here now?" I asked.
"No, we discharged him yesterday.--Hope he'll get a job, but there's
an awful lot of men looking for work."
It was probably because I was out of temper with myself, but the city
seemed hideously cruel to me as I walked down Broadway from the
Hospital. The clang of the car gongs sounded like fierce commands--the
electric lights snapped and glittered like cunning, wicked eyes--the hot
air from the shops offended like venomous breath--the rattle of the
carts and cabs sounded reckless--the crowds seemed to jostle and
grapple. The gaily-lighted windows mocked me with their glitter, and the
darkened ones had a menace in their black indifference. In every elbow
touching me I seemed to feel some threat--in every eye looking at me I
seemed to read some impatient question asked in brutal scorn. These
masses of men rushing by me this way and that--they hated me--longed to
trample me down and crush me into the dirt beneath their feet!--No, they
didn't.--And wouldn't?--Unless they found me in their path, and then
they'd wipe me from it with scarce a thought--yes, and rush on without a
sign, without knowledge of my obliteration.--Well, it wasn't worth
struggling against--the odds were too great.--And anyway, what
difference did it make?
I felt a touch on my shoulder, and almost screamed. It was St. Clair
Mowbray. I don't like him much, but any companion was a friend just
then, so we walked along together, he chatting and I silent.
As we passed the Metropolitan Opera House a line of people stretched
from the box-office out into the street.
"What fools," said Mowbray, "they must want tickets damned badly to do
that. Don't they look like a chain gang?"
"More like the bread line at Fleischmann's," I answered gloomily.
"Yes--but better bred."
Mowbray chuckled approvingly at his sally.
I parted with him at the next corner feeling his wit would not appeal to
me that evening.