“I don’t know.  He’s got a high fever.”

The hotel physician looked at him.

“Better send him to Bellevue,” he recommended.  “He’s got pneumonia.”

Accordingly, he was carted away.

In three weeks the worst was over, but it was nearly the first of May before his strength permitted him to be turned out.  Then he was discharged.

No more weakly looking object ever strolled out into the spring sunshine than the once hale, lusty manager.  All his corpulence had fled.  His face was thin and pale, his hands white, his body flabby.  Clothes and all, he weighed but one hundred and thirty-five pounds.  Some old garments had been given him—­a cheap brown coat and misfit pair of trousers.  Also some change and advice.  He was told to apply to the charities.

Again he resorted to the Bowery lodging-house, brooding over where to look.  From this it was but a step to beggary.

“What can a man do?” he said.  “I can’t starve.”

His first application was in sunny Second Avenue.  A well-dressed man came leisurely strolling toward him out of Stuyvesant Park.  Hurstwood nerved himself and sidled near.

“Would you mind giving me ten cents?” he said, directly.  “I’m in a position where I must ask some one.”

The man scarcely looked at him, fished in his vest pocket and took out a dime.

“There you are,” he said.

“Much obliged,” said Hurstwood, softly, but the other paid no more attention to him.

Satisfied with his success and yet ashamed of his situation, he decided that he would only ask for twenty-five cents more, since that would be sufficient.  He strolled about sizing up people, but it was long before just the right face and situation arrived.  When he asked, he was refused.  Shocked by this result, he took an hour to recover and then asked again.  This time a nickel was given him.  By the most watchful effort he did get twenty cents more, but it was painful.

The next day he resorted to the same effort, experiencing a variety of rebuffs and one or two generous receptions.  At last it crossed his mind that there was a science of faces, and that a man could pick the liberal countenance if he tried.

It was no pleasure to him, however, this stopping of passers-by.  He saw one man taken up for it and now troubled lest he should be arrested.  Nevertheless, he went on, vaguely anticipating that indefinite something which is always better.

It was with a sense of satisfaction, then, that he saw announced one morning the return of the Casino Company, “with Miss Carrie Madenda.”  He had thought of her often enough in days past.  How successful she was—­how much money she must have!  Even now, however, it took a severe run of ill luck to decide him to appeal to her.  He was truly hungry before he said: 

“I’ll ask her.  She won’t refuse me a few dollars.”

Accordingly, he headed for the Casino one afternoon, passing it several times in an effort to locate the stage entrance.  Then he sat in Bryant Park, a block away, waiting.  “She can’t refuse to help me a little,” he kept saying to himself.