Read Online An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser - Free Book Online Page B

gave an enormous bound and was near to suffocating him at the mere mention of so large a sum. From four to six dollars! Why, that was twenty-eight to forty-two dollars a week! He could scarcely believe it. And that in addition to the fifteen dollars a month and board. And there was no charge, as Mr. Squires now explained, for the handsome uniforms the boys wore. But it might not be worn or taken out of the place. His hours, as Mr. Squires now proceeded to explain, would be as follows: On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, he was to work from six in the morning until noon, and then, with six hours off, from six in the evening until midnight. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he need only work from noon until six, thus giving him each alternate afternoon or evening to himself. But all his meals were to be taken outside his working hours and he was to report promptly in uniform for line-up and inspection by his superior exactly ten minutes before the regular hours of his work began at each watch.
    As for some other things which were in his mind at the time, Mr. Squires said nothing. There were others, as he knew, who would speak for him. Instead he went on to add, and then quite climactically for Clyde at that time, who had been sitting as one in a daze: “I suppose you are ready to go to work now, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, sir, yes, sir,” he replied.
    “Very good!” Then he got up and opened the door which had shut them in. “Oscar,” he called to a boy seated at the head of the bell-boy bench, to which a tallish, rather oversized youth in a tight, neat-looking uniform responded with alacrity. “Take this young man here—Clyde Griffiths is your name, isn’t it?—up to the wardrobe on the twelfth and see if Jacobs can find a suit to fit. But if he can’t tell him to alter it by to-morrow. I think the one Silsbee wore ought to be about right for him.”
    Then he turned to his assistant at the desk who was at the moment looking on. “I’m giving him a trial, anyhow,” he commented. “Have one of the boys coach him a little to-night or whenever he starts in. Go ahead, Oscar,” he called to the boy in charge of Clyde. “He’s green at this stuff, but I think he’ll do,” he added to his assistant, as Clyde and Oscar disappeared in the direction of one of the elevators. Then he walked off to have Clyde’s name entered upon the payroll.
    In the meantime, Clyde, in tow of his new mentor, was listening to a line of information such as never previously had come to his ears anywhere.
    “You needn’t be frightened, if you ain’t never worked at anything like dis before,” began this youth, whose last name was Hegglund as Clyde later learned, and who hailed from Jersey City, New Jersey, exotic lingo, gestures and all. He was tall, vigorous, sandy-haired, freckled, genial and voluble. They had entered upon an elevator labeled “employees.” “It ain’t so hard. I got my first job in Buffalo t’ree years ago and I never knowed a t’ing about it up to dat time. All you gotta do is to watch de udders an’ see how dey do, see. Yu get dat, do you?”
    Clyde, whose education was not a little superior to that of his guide, commented quite sharply in his own mind on the use of such words as “knowed,” and “gotta”—also upon “t’ing,” “dat,” “udders,” and so on, but so grateful was he for any courtesy at this time that he was inclined to forgive his obviously kindly mentor anything for his geniality.
    “Watch whoever’s doin’ anyt’ing, at first, see, till you git to know, see. Dat’s de way. When de bell rings, if you’re at de head of de bench, it’s your turn, see, an’ you jump up and go quick. Dey like you to be quick around here, see. An’ whenever you see any one come in de door or out of an elevator wit a bag, an’ you’re at de head of de bench, you jump, wedder de captain rings de bell or calls ‘front’ or not. Sometimes he’s busy or ain’t lookin’ an’ he