I sat on the stringpiece and wept with
mortification. When I arose and went my way, the war was over,
as far as I was concerned. It was that in fact, as it speedily
appeared. The country which to-day, after thirty years of trial and
bereavement, is still capable of the Dreyfus infamy, was not fit
to hold what was its own. I am glad now that I did not go, though
I cannot honestly say that I deserve any credit for it.
All my money was gone, and an effort I made to join a railroad gang
in the Spuyten Duyvil cut came to nothing. Again I reenforced my
credit with my revolver and the everlasting top-boots, but the two
or three dollars they brought at the pawnshop were soon gone, and
once more I was turned out in the street. It was now late in the
fall. The brick-making season was over. The city was full of idle
men. My last hope, a promise of employment in a human-hair factory,
failed, and, homeless and penniless, I joined the great army of
tramps, wandering about the streets in the daytime with the one
aim of somehow stilling the hunger that gnawed at my vitals, and
fighting at night with vagrant curs or outcasts as miserable as
myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or doorway.
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