huge mustache, come out and hang a sign, "Porter wanted in
A.M.," on the saloon door.

As he slouched away to join the bread-line, a black deuce in the
world's discard, Carl was wondering how he could get that imperial
appointment as porter in a Bowery saloon. He almost forgot it while
waiting in the bread-line, so occupied was he in hating two collegians
who watched the line with that open curiosity which nice, clean,
respectable young men suppose the poor never notice. He restrained his
desire to go over and quote Greek at them, because they were ignorant
and not to blame for being sure that they were of clay superior to
any one in a bread-line. And partly because he had forgotten his
Greek.

He came back to the Bowery briskly, alone, with the manhood of a loaf
of bread in him. He was going to get that job as porter. He planned
his campaign as a politician plans to become a statesman. He slipped
the sign, "Porter wanted in A.M.," from its nail and hid it beneath
his coat. He tramped the block all night and, as suspicious characters
always do to avoid seeming suspicious, he begged a match from a
policeman who was keeping an eye on him. The policeman chatted with
him about baseball and advised him to keep away from liquor and
missions.

At 5 A.M. Carl was standing at the saloon door. When the bartender
opened it Carl bounced in, slightly dizzy, conscious of the slime of
mud on his fraying trouser-ends.

The saloon had an air of cheap crime and a floor covered with clotted
sawdust. The bar was a slab of dark-brown wood, so worn that
semicircles of slivers were showing. The nasty gutter was still filled
with cigar-ends and puddles of beer and bits of free-lunch cheese.

"I want that job as porter," said Carl.

"Oh, you do, do you? Well, you wait and see who else comes to get it."

"Nobody else is going to come."

"How do you know they ain't?"

Carl drew the sign from beneath his coat and carefully laid it on the
bar. "That's why."

"Well, you got nerve. You got the nerve of a Republican on Fourteenth
Street, like the fellow says. You must want it. Well, all right, I
guess you can have it if the boss don't kick."

Carl was accepted by the "boss," who gave him a quarter and told him
to go out and get a "regular feed." He hummed over breakfast. He had
been accepted again by all men when he had been accepted by the
proprietor of a Bowery saloon. He was going to hold this job, no
matter what happened. The rolli