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

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At the desk where I paid the amount stamped upon a check which the waiter had left at my place, I inquired for the manager. When I received his assurance that he could give me no work as a dishwasher, nor, in fact, in any capacity in his restaurant, and that he knew of no opening for me anywhere, I walked out into the streets once more and found my way to the public reading-room of the Young Men’s Christian Association. There I looked through the advertising columns of the morning newspapers. Of applications for positions there was an almost countless number, but of openings offered there were few, and not one of these was promising to a man whose only resource was unskilled labor. Reading on somewhat aimlessly through the day’s news I presently fell asleep, and was soon awakened by a young secretary, who was shaking me vigorously by the shoulder.

“Wake up, my man, wake up!” he was saying. “You can’t sleep in here. You must keep awake, or go out.”

I went out. It was easier to keep awake in the streets than in that warm room, and besides, I must not slacken the search for work.