Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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“It is tough,” I agree, as I study his face. He is about thirty, I should say, and almost six feet high, but of rather slender figure. He is smooth-shaven, and an effect of pallor is heightened by yellow hair and pale blue eyes, with dark arcs beneath them and a bluish tinge about his mouth. Plainly he has been little exposed to the outer air, but he is an habitual workman, as his hands attest unmistakably when he lifts them to adjust his coat-collar.

“Ain’t you got no place to go to?” he asks.

“No.”

“No more have I,” he adds, laconically. And then, after a pause:

“When did you strike this town?”

“This evening.”

“Looking for a job?”

“Yes.”

“Same as me. What kind of a job?”

“Any kind that I can get.”

“Ain’t you got a trade?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t believe you are any worse off for that here. I struck the place yesterday and I ain’t never seen so many idle men and hoboes in my life before. When the iron-works in Cleveland closed down, that laid me off. I couldn’t get no job there, and so I beat my way here. I had fifty cents in my clothes and that got me something to eat yesterday and a bed last night, but I spent my last cent for grub this noon. I’ve been to most every foundry in Chicago, I guess, but I ain’t found any sign of a job yet. Where are you going to put in the night?”