“Call Olsen,” he said, turning to the clerk.

In reply to a bell and a disappearing hall-boy, Olsen, the head porter, appeared.

“Olsen,” said the manager, “is there anything downstairs you could find for this man to do?  I’d like to give him something.”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Olsen.  “We have about all the help we need.  I think I could find something, sir, though, if you like.”

“Do.  Take him to the kitchen and tell Wilson to give him something to eat.”

“All right, sir,” said Olsen.

Hurstwood followed.  Out of the manager’s sight, the head porter’s manner changed.

“I don’t know what the devil there is to do,” he observed.

Hurstwood said nothing.  To him the big trunk hustler was a subject for private contempt.

“You’re to give this man something to eat,” he observed to the cook.

The latter looked Hurstwood over, and seeing something keen and intellectual in his eyes, said: 

“Well, sit down over there.”

Thus was Hurstwood installed in the Broadway Central, but not for long.  He was in no shape or mood to do the scrub work that exists about the foundation of every hotel.  Nothing better offering, he was set to aid the fireman, to work about the basement, to do anything and everything that might offer.  Porters, cooks, firemen, clerks—­all were over him.  Moreover his appearance did not please these individuals—­his temper was too lonely—­and they made it disagreeable for him.

With the stolidity and indifference of despair, however, he endured it all, sleeping in an attic at the roof of the house, eating what the cook gave him, accepting a few dollars a week, which he tried to save.  His constitution was in no shape to endure.

One day the following February he was sent on an errand to a large coal company’s office.  It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy.  He soaked his shoes in his progress and came back feeling dull and weary.  All the next day he felt unusually depressed and sat about as much as possible, to the irritation of those who admired energy in others.

In the afternoon some boxes were to be moved to make room for new culinary supplies.  He was ordered to handle a truck.  Encountering a big box, he could not lift it.

“What’s the matter there?” said the head porter.  “Can’t you handle it?”

He was straining to lift it, but now he quit.

“No,” he said, weakly.

The man looked at him and saw that he was deathly pale.

“Not sick, are you?” he asked.  “I think I am,” returned Hurstwood.

“Well, you’d better go sit down, then.”

This he did, but soon grew rapidly worse.  It seemed all he could do to crawl to his room, where he remained for a day.

“That man Wheeler’s sick,” reported one of the lackeys to the night clerk.

“What’s the matter with him?”