unanswered. That settled Frank. If I were called upon to write his epitaph, I should word it about as follows: "Here lies Frank, the most cheerful jester and liar I ever met, and the most disappointing friend at a distance." Whenever my thoughts reverted to Toronto, gloom would settle over my mind like a fog on the marshes.
I had wasted the day. In the evening I laid out a plan of campaign. Being now, as I imagined, a fully experienced waiter, I resolved not to rely on the advertisements in the papers alone, but to find the addresses of the employment agencies and to apply to them. Nevertheless, as a last thing before going to bed in order to make up for the sleep lost the previous night, I went out into the street to buy the evening papers and to look over their "help-wanted" columns.
When I got back to my room and unfolded the sheets I had purchased, I was dumbfounded to see my portrait adorning the front-pages of the various editions. Glaring headlines proclaimed: "Police makes big haul." -- "Clever crook who flooded the city with counterfeit bills at last apprehended." -- "Tries to deny but breaks down under cross-examination." I was intensely worried. It took me a long while before I was able to sleep; and the purpose for which the papers were bought was entirely forgotten.
Next morning I was inclined to view things more quietly and to let the whole matter rest. And rest it did but I anxiously scanned the morning papers for a denial of last night's story; but none appeared. I might add that the story was never set right, in spite of the fact that surely the police must have issued a denial. My revenge has been that ever since I have considered newspapers as remarkable only for their "square-miles of printed lies."
I was astonished to find that nobody seemed to recognize me. I had imagined that everybody would be talking about the case; and I was nearly disappointed to find that even such a "haul" on the part of the police should pass unnoticed beyond eliciting a momentary interest on the

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part of the commuter ensconced in his car-seat behind the rampart of his daily paper which defends him against all intrusion on the part of literature. I did not know yet that most people read with their eyes only, not with their minds, the same as they twiddle their thumbs for physical exercise.
Though, with all my recent savings gone, I was in a hurry to find work, I was not at all nervous; but I felt that I had lost two months of my life, a rather serious setback for one in my situation.
First of all I called at two employment agencies -- one a commercial agency in the down-town district, the other a "waiter's exchange" somewhere in the central portion of Manhattan Island. At both these the first question asked was that after my "experience". At both I was requested to fill out a lengthy questionnaire which seemed to search into my most private doings during the past five or ten years. When I had filled it out, I stood stripped of all pretence at being a veteran in any trade whatever. The clerks who waited on me took my money -- two and a half dollars each; but when they looked at my record, their faces lengthened.
"You haven't been in this country very long?" asked the elderly man at the Fulton Street office.
"Not very," I answered deprecatingly.
"Have you any relatives or friends to take care of you?"
"No."
He pushed my registration fee back to me across the counter and made an ominous-sounding remark. "You better hold on to your money," he said, "You'll need it before long."
"But surely," I said, still with a brave and confident smile, "a man with my education . . ."
"No," he interrupted me fiercely, "your education does not count for that much here. Let me tell you," this in a more friendly and sympathetic tone, "you speak French and German, Italian and Swedish. Well, there are thousands like you here. If you knew how to pound a typewriter
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faster than anybody else, we could place you at once. Or if, instead of those languages, you knew Rumanian, Slovakian, or some such lingo, we might try. But for French and German nobody has any use except a bartender or a waiter."
I thanked him, of course, and left. So it was a position as a waiter for me, after all!
At the waiters' exchange I was told to return the next morning at ten o'clock.
I was there on time.
The anteroom was filled with a noisy, laughing, polyglot crowd. One after another these people stepped up to a wicket, where a clerk, after enquiring for name and number of registration-card, gave each of them a slip containing the addresses of one or more establishments in need of help.
When it came my turn, I stepped up.
"Oh, yes," said the clerk, looking me over and recognizing the card which I had filled out the day before; "you are Branden, are you? Phil Branden? Speak French and German, I see. Fluently?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Experience? Some, I see. None in Europe?"
"No."
"Well, wait a minute. I'll see what I can do for you."
He stepped back, took the receiver off a telephone stand, and called a number. A few of his words, during the conversation which followed, caught my ear. "Yes," he said. "French and German. Spanish, too, by the way. . . . What's that? Smart-looking? Yes, I should say. Yes, straight as a pine-tree. No, not very much experience. But I'd give him a chance if I were you. All right, send him over right off."
He replaced the receiver and returned to the wicket.
I looked at him, all expectant.
"Well, he said, "I've fixed you up, I think. Good place, too; at the Belmont." He wrote a few words on

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my card. "On forty-second," he added. "I suppose you know. Good luck to you."
With that he turned to the next one waiting.
I found the gigantic pile of the famous hotel. Being still unused to my newly humble station in life, I proudly entered through the main portal into the hall. When, at the office, I stated upon what errand I came, I was rather unceremoniously waved away and directed to enter through the employees' entrance on Fourth Avenue. I left the lobby and did so.
On looking about in the subterranean corridor to which this entrance admitted me, I discovered a sign on the frosted glass panel of a door. "A. J. Harris," it read, "Employment Agent."
I approached and was on the point of knocking when the door opened; a small man with a white goatee came rushing out and collided with me.
"What're you doing here?" he asked in unmistakably bad humour.
Again I stated my errand.
"See the captain," he said and pointed along the corridor, hurrying away meanwhile.
I continued my search till I found a door similar to the first but marked "Captain". I knocked.
The same moment a voice from behind enquired, "Want to see me?"
I started and turned. In the half-light which prevailed I saw a tall, massive, clean-shaven, typically American man in a black dinner-jacket standing behind me.
I stated my errand for the third time.
A few, rapid-fire questions followed, in English, French, German, all of which I answered satisfactorily.
Then came the dreaded question about my experience.
I stuck to the truth.
A frown settled on the man's face. "Give you a chance as an omnibus," he said; he seemed to drop the words slowly, like so many pebbles; "the best I can do for you."
"I am willing to learn," I said.

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"All right; report to-night at five. You have a black swallow-tail?"
"Yes."
"You'll find me here." And he was on the point of going.
Then I made a mistake.
"May I ask," I said, detaining him, "what the wages are?
"Four dollars a week," he said; and he fixed a pair of stern, penetrating eyes on my face.
My disappointment must have shown in my features. I know I thought of the fact that my room-rent amounted to five dollars a week.
Unaccountably, utterly unprovoked, in a wilfully insulting tone, he snapped out a few vicious words which left me with a feeling of dumbfounded surprise and indignation; they seemed so utterly uncalled-for.
"I don't want you," he said. "I don't want you at all. Do you think I can change the rules of a large establishment like this, just because you come here, begging for a job?"
His voice had risen towards the last; the next moment I looked after his retreating figure, too much taken aback to speak. I felt inclined to rush after him and to put him, by a few cutting remarks, "where he belonged." Fortunately the futility of bearding the lion in his den came home to me in time, and I was struck with a sense of the ludicrous. I laughed and retraced my steps.
When I emerged into the avenue, a miracle had happened. I was in Europe again; I was a European. My whole present situation was forgotten, submerged in social and intellectual pride. Who was I to walk these paths? I did not care to admit that I had been defeated. Had I retreated? No, I had given up certain positions, given them up "for strategic reasons", as I might have said. Had I been more of an analyst of mental states, I should have seen that my very revolt and indignation proved me to be defeated. It was no genuine outburst, but resent-

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ment. To entrench oneself behind the feeling of superiority is invariably a sign that one has become the underdog. But for the moment this revulsion of my feelings gave relief. I was no longer daunted by the terrors and dangers of a foreign world. I had bravely gone through the worst; I had done the utmost anybody could ask me to do -- as if anybody had asked me to do anything at all! In Toronto, rebuffs, courteous or discourteous, sympathetic or unsympathetic, had filled me with vague fears, with a dread of the future, with dark misgivings as to the very possibilities of life itself. To-day's experience, which was really quite similar, wiped away even that feeling of uncertainty, of unfamiliarity with life and its various, unknown aspects with which I had been infiltrated by my encounter with Messrs. Hannan and Howard. I looked down upon such a world. I was glad I had met with the adventures of the last two days. Instead of charging them up to my own lack of knowledge in the ways of the world, I charged them up to America. Howard and Hannan, Frank and this captain of waiterdom, they were all of a type -- they were what I had very nearly come to accept on a level of equality! I had simply not been keeping myself at the proper distance; in my present mood I should have snubbed even Mr. Bennett! Compared with such as made up that quartette, I felt very righteous indeed. "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as these men are!"
I seemed to see with a very sudden realization that I had been all wrong in my methods; the advice I had been listening to was the advice of ignorance. This last rebuff, I thought, was needed to throw me back on the right track. Here I was, in a New World whose sham civilization was crude, raw, unfinished in the extreme. Yes, America was crude. That was the word. I can hardly convey how much there was of comfort, of soul-quieting, soothing, flattering support in this wonderful word which summarized my condemnation of the country to which I had come. "Crude!" And I? Forgotten was all that

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humility which I had so carefully nursed. Forgotten was what had driven me out of Europe -- the merciless adherence to pre-ordained lines of caste -- the spirit of sham and hypocrisy -- the lying falseness of it all. I was, suddenly, the representative in a foreign country of an older, of a superior civilization. I forgot that I had come among these "colonials" and "Yankees" to ask them for a living. I felt as if I were conferring a favour upon them by condescending to accept an adequate remuneration for my mere presence upon their shores.
This reaction which was brought about by a mere trifle has often puzzled me since. Many a time I have tried to fathom its significance; but I failed to understand it except as a mere perversity -- till I became aware of the fact that it is typical; that nearly every immigrant into the New World goes through this stage; that some of them, especially English immigrants, seem never to get over it. It is probably something like a last fight put up by the old associations, the old order that had pressed its seal upon mind and soul, the old points of view and ways of looking at things. Everything that was European in the immigrant rallies once more and tries to reconvert him -- till at last it collapses and leaves him helpless, exhausted; unless indeed it wins out.
The spirit of this reaction determined my next move. No longer was I going to apply for positions which might be offered in the daily papers. Instead, I was going to announce to the Americas that I was here and willing to listen to applications for my services. In other words, I was going to advertise for a position.
That very day I arranged to run an advertisement for a week in three of the leading newspapers of New York. It was a long advertisement, carefully composed, setting forth all my manifold accomplishments, but omitting those considerations which might argue to my disadvantage; the question of immediate remuneration was treated as negligible. When I read the final copy, behold, it was very good; at least, it seemed so to me. It was, of course,

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quite an expense to print this essay in display type for six insertions running; to be exact, it cost me in the neighbourhood of ninety dollars. But I felt confident that it would bring results; no doubt the big corporations could use me, or maybe the diplomatic service. Above all, the fact that I had this announcement running seemed somehow to release me from all responsibilities with regard to myself; I felt that I could sit back and await developments.
I made up my mind not to enquire for answers before the week was over. I thought it best not to read a single one before the very last reply that I could possibly expect had arrived. If I read them as they came in, so I reasoned, I might merely be sowing regret for the future; the better offers might come later, following the less desirable ones. Anxiety to get settled might induce me to accept the first thing that came along. I was no longer willing to work at no matter what.
I spent a delightful week.
It was still early in the fall, the month being September. The valley of the Hudson River and the hills of Westchester County were arraying themselves for the grand carnIval of the year. Hazy atmospheres and crisp breezes, alternating, moved the distances backward and forward, as if you were looking at them through telescopes of varying power. There was about my rambles something of the adventure of the first explorers. They had before them the Indians and an unknown continent. I had the unknown continent and the Americans.
Somehow I began, during this first week of carefree roaming which I enjoyed in the New World, to sense something exotic, something of the undiscovered world, something of the smell and scent of wild things in this small fringe of the continent, through which I walked, not observing, not exploring, but in a divine forgetfulness of all my worries and of the large city close by, with all its bustle and hurry and its relentless challenge. There was a beyond to these hills, something which called. There

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were days when the call became so intense, so concrete as to grow very nearly into a sound. I climbed across fences and walked across lawns, straight up to the crest of these hills, in a bee-line, merely to look down into the valley beyond and then to turn back, unsatisfied, strangely at a loss. I hardly knew what to do with myself, feeling full of a boundless melancholy which yet was infinitely sweet, for it remained entirely veiled and never became so pronounced as to force an interpretation in articulate thought.
Yet there were other moods, too; moods of a sterner, less comfortable cast.
My relation to Nature had been largely a literary one. When I had gone to Italy, I had read and studied what others had thought and felt there: Goethe, Browning, Byron, Shelley; and unconsciously I had tried to feel and to think like them. I remember with special distinctness having stood, as a very young man, on some promontory, somewhere in the Mediterranean, where large rocks had continued the grey ridge on which I stood way out into the blue deep, like "staccato accents in some great symphony". Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikowsky had written my landscapes for me.
All that seemed very far and distant now. I could not make out at the time where I was heading; but I knew even then that unknown in their nature to myself, processes were at work which were to remould me, which were to make me into something new, something different from what I had been, something less artificial. I felt as if I were in the hands of powers beyond my own or any human control; as if the gods were grinding me into their grist and grinding me exceedingly small.
I fought these powers, fought them with all my might. Growing-pains are the most healthful sign in a boy; but the boy does not like them; he would cast them off if he could; they make him feel tired when he wants to be active; they make him feel dependent when he dreams of being master.
I should have preferred to condemn; but I could not do

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that now, not at least without reservations. I should have preferred to pass sentence on everything, on the country as well as on its population. It would have re-established my inner equilibrium which was shaken and thrown out of balance. I still felt that America -- using the word as a collective name for that part of the population of two cities with which I had come into contact -- was "crude". But here, in the hills and the woods, there was something strangely at variance with that population. Here there was, not a church, not a society, not a man-made institution; here there was God; but God, too, sometimes seemed cruel.
One day I went to the sea-shore; I do not remember just where, maybe at Rockaway, or on Long Island. It was early in the afternoon; the sea looked intensely, cruelly, unfeelingly blue. I walked along a beach of a blinding white, a chalky white. By and by I sat down; and as I sat there, I felt intensely aimless, useless in the world -- homeless, too: the Son of Man has no place where to rest his head. And suddenly I realized that the beach on which I was sitting consisted of myriads and millions of shells, thrown up by the waves from the deep, from their home, here to die, to be ground to pieces by the wash of the surf. It was a great shock. Religion had in my former life never meant anything to me. I had grown up and lived in entire indifference. Here I revolted. At this moment and in the light of what I saw life meant for me largely the ability to feel pain. Why did all these myriads and millions of living beings have to live, if they lived only to die, and to die in such a way, such a cruel, casual way, devoid of meaning? God all-good? I asked. He could be all-good only if he was also all-ignorant, not all-knowing. My whole inner consciousness was like the raw flesh of a frightful wound: yes, I was such a shell thrown on these shores, in the process of being ground to pieces and fragments, in order to furnish the soil for others to stand on and maybe to thrive on.
When I returned to the city, my mood was nearly suicidal.

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The week went by; and so there came the time when I had to face the things in hand again. One evening, when I had allowed ample time for all replies to come in, I made the round of the three newspaper offices to collect my letters. There were fifteen in all. I put them in my pocket and went home.
I was full of expectant excitement when I began to open one after the other. Their contents struck me like the news of a great disaster. Not one of them was a bona-fide offer. Not one of them took cognizance of the things which in my advertisement I had stated I knew or could do. Most of them were written on ordinary letter-paper, without a business heading. All of them were proposals to invest my money for me. A few stated definite sums, five hundred or a thousand dollars; most of them left the sums that were needed to make me independently rich in intentional darkness.
In an impulse of despair I gathered them all and burnt them. What was the use? I did not fit in.
This disappointment, coming as it did at a moment when my whole outlook on this new life was despondent, merely confirmed me in my despondency, my attitude of hostility towards God and the world; I closed up in my shell and coiled inside, to lie down and feel righteously unhappy. Unhappiness I felt vaguely to be a sufficient indictment of the system, a confirmation of the justice of my resentment, a justification of my late inactivity. I doubt whether that night I should have changed things had I by some effort of the will been able to do so.
What was I to do? I did not know. I counted the money that was left and found it to be somewhat less than a hundred and fifty dollars.
And now began another desperate search for work. It was not as frantic as it had been during the first week in Toronto; my anxiety was blunted by despondency. The daily round, which always fell far short of the list made up in the morning, became a matter of routine. In the beginning I used subways, elevated railways, surface cars

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whenever I had more than two or three blocks to go. I took hurried meals at whatever restaurants were handy when my general exhaustion sounded the alarm; I drowned every wish and every longing for relaxation because I saw my last funds steadily dwindle to the vanishing point. After weeks of this, when my capital had frittered away to less than a hundred dollars, I gave up riding and walked. That limited my daily range still more. The number of my calls fell to ten or twelve a day. I did not mind. My attitude had become such that I expected relief only from some lucky chance. I shaved my expenses down to a minimum, just enough to support a bare existence. My daily food bill averaged for weeks on end no higher than forty-five cents a day for week-days, and thirty cents for Sundays when I limited myself to two meals.
Curiously enough, it was at this stage that I began to read again. When the offices closed in the evening, I went home and took out my books.
A few details may be of interest. Let not the reader suppose that I limited my search to the "genteel" occupations. I did not even have any preference for them any longer. I was beginning to look under the surface. I realized that it was not only easier to secure work which would have classified me as belonging to the army of "unskilled labour", but also more profitable. You could hold down and control your outgo so much more readily; your appearance, for instance, had to satisfy only your own standards, not those of others; and by this time I should have been willing to limit my aspirations to neatness and cleanliness.
Sometimes I stood for hours in a queue of applicants waiting for jobs at the office of some contractor, or of the employment agent of a transfer company. One thing I felt sure I could not do, kill living things. Yet for days in succession I went every morning to the yards of the city abattoir and stood in line till the foreman came out and picked the men he needed. I was fortunate in that he

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always passed me by; at last I gave the abattoir up as hopeless.
Once only was I chosen by an employer, by a contractor who hired me as a hod-carrier for a building in the course of construction in Brooklyn. I started out one morning at seven o'clock carrying bricks up a ladder to the third story of the shell of what was to be a factory. At ten I played out and had to go home and to lie down. It took me the rest of the day to recover. My greatest handicap was a body which would not stand up under heavy work.
For those early morning trips in the search of a livelihood I dressed the part, of course. I had bought a suit of black overalls, so as to cover my expensive-looking wardrobe. When the time of the day came at which I could expect to find office-people in I went home, slipped off my "disguise", changed my shirt, put on collar and tie, and went out again.
Another plan was this. I knew something about books, in fact, had a personal and rather intimate relationship to the best editions of the best books in half a dozen literatures. I made a list of all the New York booksellers and called on at least one of them from day to day, offering my services for a minimum of wages to start with. I came down to offering my work at the discretion of whoever would employ me. If what I might do seemed worth anything to him, he was to give me whatever he thought fair; if not, I should be satisfied to have worked for nothing. Some of the men whom I thus interviewed were friendly; some were not. Those that were not usually asked me some such question as, "What's your game anyway?" Those that were never seemed to be in need of help; business seemed to be bad with them, invariably and without exception. Some however took my name and address, so that they might notify me should in the future a vacancy arise; I never heard any more of them.
I also called on every banker whose offices I passed in my peregrinations, especially in the smaller banks of the

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downtown districts, where foreigners did their banking. These offices I learned to enter with a show of great confidence, so as to penetrate without difficulty to the managers and presidents. I found it easier to speak to the responsible executives than to underlings who were hedged about with caution. Sometimes I was gruffly shown the door; sometimes I had a friendly chat. Once a manager regretted very much; he had indeed been in need of just such a man for the information bureau -- a clerk who could speak Italian above all; but he had, a day or so before my call, found what he wanted; the man was giving satisfaction; I was too late; but, of course, if I cared to leave my name and address . . .
Two further incidents stand out, trifling things; but everything in this desperate search seems trifling; it is only in their accumulation that matters worked up to a pitch where they became tragedy.
One day I found an advertisement in the papers which ran as follows: "Wanted, young man of good appearance and skilful address to interview ladies. Only such as have a more than average education need apply. Experience in any commercial branch unnecessary. Tact and an unusual degree of culture indispensable. Do not answer unless you have at least a college education. Apply personally . . . ."
Just my case, I thought with characteristic promptness and felt at once in high spirits. I cannot help laughing at myself when, in looking back, I see myself answering that advertisement. I dressed with great care for the interview.
A dandified, effeminately adorned young man received me. For ten minutes or so he made a general conversation, handing out small-talk as if I were on a social call. Then he excused himself and left through a door, leaving me alone in a sumptuous office which resembled more the reception room in a well-appointed private house than that of a business firm. Nothing whatever gave me a clue to the line of activity these people might be pursuing.

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A few minutes later the young man returned with his partner, a stockily built, burly, middle-aged man with long hair and flowing necktie. He looked like a bohemian of the parlor variety; he might have posed as a sculptor or a painter of peasant stock; his bohemianism was too exaggerated to be genuine.
The young man introduced me with elaborate politeness; and again there began an exchange of mystifying small-talk.
Suddenly they turned towards each other; a mask seemed to drop from their faces; they spoke in rapid French.
I smiled and broke in, speaking French myself, calling their attention to the fact that, if they wished not to be understood, they had chosen the wrong means.
Both gave a brilliant, apologetic smile.
The bohemian turned to me with an expression of candour. "Well," he said, "Mr. Branden, we are very sorry. It is your brogue that stands in the way. Your language is too unmistakably English. We need Yankees. You have everything else. But we want a man who can interview young ladies, college students, in fact . . ."
"You will understand, Mr. Branden," the young Beau Brummel broke in, "they are so flippant; they pick on everything to get the lead in a conversation. Whoever interviews them must not only be able to dominate them completely; he must not give them the slightest thing to take hold of, either. If they find anything at all to make fun of in the man who interviews them, our representative cannot do business with them. As Mr. Lowell said, you have everything else, but you have the slightest touch of a brogue. I am so sorry, Mr. Branden; I am sure you will understand . . ."
Both he and Mr. Lowell offered their hands; we parted as if I were a duke and they mere knights of the lesser gentry.
Of course, I did not understand one iota of it all, but -- well, what was the use?

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The other incident reminds me of an anecdote in a magazine story. Only its outcome was, of course, radically different; life usually differs from fiction.
It occurred when I had reached my last ten-dollar bill. Many a time had I passed the large window of the branch of one of the international Telegraph and Cable Companies in which a card was displayed, bearing the legend, "Messenger boys wanted". I had seen this card so often that it became a fixture in my memory picture of that streetcorner. It hardly conveyed any meaning to me any longer. But one evening, when I saw the moment coming at which I should be entirely destitute, its sight suddenly flashed upon my mind, and it seemed to have a sudden import for me.
"What a boy can do, I can do," thus ran my thought; and in my distress, this inspiration shone like a beacon-light in the dark. I was ready to catch at any straw in order to save myself from drowning.
Next morning I went straight to this office, without even having any breakfast, and asked, upon entering, for the manager.
A tall, lean, humourous-looking man in slovenly attire, a tooth-pick in his mouth, sidled up to the counter and looked at me with a questioning inclination of his head.
"You are the manager, sir?" I enquired.
"Yes, sir," he said in a voice which seemed impatient right then, though probably it was only indifferent.
"I see by the sign in your window that you need messenger-boys," I began hopefully.
"Always room for some more," he replied casually, looking at me with his questioning glance.
"What a boy can do, I can do," I went on and smiled at him.
He tilted his tooth-pick up, puckered his forehead, and stared. "I don't get you," he said with mild reproach in his tone.
"I will make myself clear," I smiled, "I wish to make application for one of the jobs."

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His eyes narrowed to mere slits. He gave a short laugh. "Gwan!" he said.
Several clerks who had overheard our conversation, drew nearer, expectant, grinning.
"I mean it, sir," I went on. "I am out of work; I am stranded. I assure you I shall try my best to give satisfaction."
"Quit your kidding," he cut in, this time sharply.
"But my dear sir," I argued with the courage of desperation, "if you would only take me seriously. I mean every word I say. I am at the end of my string. I am an immigrant and find it impossible to secure work. I am willing to do anything at all, down to sweeping your offices, provided it will pay for a meal-ticket."
"Cut it," he interrupted me. "Get a move on you, before I put you out of here. There's the door."
Under a general snicker I made my exit.
That week I began to sell my wardrobe. Suit after suit, overcoat after overcoat, went to the "Jew", as I expressed it to myself. Pitiful prices they brought. For the star-piece which I sold, an evening-dress suit made by one of the most exclusive tailors in London, a tailor to whom you have to come well recommended if you want him to work for you -- I had paid him twenty-five pounds for it -- I received ten dollars. I hated to do this -- not that I minded parting with my things; but I knew that this policy merely meant putting off a little longer what had to come, what was approaching, inevitably, inexorably. I had exhausted my funds; now I was exhausting those of my possessions on which I could realize. Besides, there was for me something repulsive in the thought that others were going to wear what I had come to regard as nearly part of myself.
Why did I not return to Toronto? Well, I wrote to Mr. Carlton, asking him whether I could drop back into my old "job", and adding some lame explanation for my failure at New York. I never heard of the man. That worried me. If I had received an encouraging reply, I

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should most certainly have started back at once, and probably this book would never have been written. As it was, I thought up a great many reasons which might account for his silence. What kept me from going on the blind chance was the thought that possibly the restaurant had gone out of existence. I was so used to what I considered my bad luck -- and which was largely ignorance and the lack of proper direction -- that in every case I expected the worst rather than the best. As a point of fact I might add that, when, many years later, I did return to Toronto -- as a tourist -- I found Mr. Johnson's Café not only in a flourishing condition, but much enlarged. A second similar restaurant had been opened in a different location and was run by the same management; it, too, flourished like the first. When, at the time of this visit, I spoke to the now aging manager, he recognized me at once; his first question was, "Why did you not come back to us when you wrote me from New York?" "Why did you not answer my letter?" I countered. "Oh," he said, "I thought that was hardly necessary. I expected you any day."
Meanwhile, as I have already said, I gave my evenings and Sundays to reading. And since, in due time, contrary to the reading of most people, mine was destined to influence my life profoundly, I cannot omit saying a few words about it. I have mentioned that I had brought a small collection of books from Europe. The tin-lined box which contained them had not been opened at Toronto. I broke into it now; most of these books went the way of my wardrobe -- to second-hand dealers. It was easy to sell them -- at great sacrifice, of course -- since they had beautiful bindings and were well kept. So, when from time to time I made up a parcel of them for sale, I looked them over carefully. I parted with them as one parts with old friends who have never disappointed him. I felt about them as all who have loved their books a little too well have felt about them the world over since there were any books. Every time a number of them was to leave my

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room there were a few which I put back into the box in order to postpone their life. So, very gradually, my little collection dwindled, the price of those that were sacrificed to be converted into fifteen-cent meals and to be used for my room-rent.
Occasionally, after having struck a bargain with the dealer -- mostly they went to a shop on 16th Street -- I made him throw in a magazine or two.
These magazines I read as my first introduction into American literature. In them I found some reflection of the actualities of modern American life, not in the fiction but in the articles; and though it took quite a while, at last I arrived at something like an understanding sympathy with American views and ideas. Being of anything rather than a frivolous turn of mind, I preferred informational or argumentative articles to the short-stories which even then predominated in the magazines.
By inference, or by a sort of mental reconstruction which seized upon hints and casual references that I ran across in my desultory reading, three great facts were slowly built up in my mind.
Firstly, there was such a thing as American Lettres. There had been writers in America whose works, unlike the general run of them, were not a mere recast of European models. In my still incomplete and distant view of them, they were, for me, soon dominated by three great figures: Lincoln, Lowell, Thoreau. I did not study them directly as yet; but I marked them down for future reading. Still I gleaned enough of their physiognomies to fill me with a rather rueful admiration. Lincoln's homely features, above all, his utter lack of pretence in casually dropping sentences of tremendous import -- sentences that seemed at one and the same time to be formulated on the spur of the moment and to give voice to thoughts which had been carefully and slowly prepared through the millennia, so that they now stood, though printed on mere paper, as if carved by superhuman forces in the granite of geologic ages -- Lincoln's face made me forget my own puny

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misery; his final earthly fate filled me with a personal sense of loss and yet with a sense, also, of a vastly superior significance, such as would in the end outrun mere human destinies.
Secondly, there was an America of which so far I did not know anything. New York was, a mere bridgehead of Europe in the western hemisphere. The real America was somewhere else; but where? I was still under what I may call the geographical illusion. Had I seen even part of it yet? I did not know. The essential thing was that my education had been woefully incomplete; it had left part of the life of our globe out of the scheme of things -- and that a part which was by no means negligible. I felt again as those first explorers must have felt when they began to realize that behind this fringe of coast which the discoverers had found there lay a vast continent, a world unknown. Somehow I felt as if my task were harder than theirs. They merely needed to set out, at the risk of their lives, it is true, to arrive at the physical facts; and they found glory and reward. The unknown world which I had to explore was a spiritual world; it had to be inferred from abstract facts; worst of all, in order to arrive at something which might be of value to me in terms of happiness or despair, it had to be condemned or approved of. "Judge not," said Christ. But, unless I judged, I could not justify myself. Physical facts can be taken as they are; you do not condemn or approve of a river valley or a mountain. But an outlook or a philosophy of life is either good or bad -- a doctrine of life, of either death or life: you must side for or against it; in order to make your decision, you must first know. I did not know. Were Lincoln, Lowell, Thoreau accidents? But accidents do not happen. Where, then, was the ground out of which they had grown? Where was the soil that had borne them, so it might bear me? The one thing needful for the seed is to be planted.
And thirdly, there arose out of my casual reading a new insight about myself. I had come to America to "make

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my pile". But suppose some millionaire had happened to strike up an acquaintance with me; suppose he had taken an interest in my struggles and completely eliminated the economic factor by signing a cheque. What would such a competence have been worth to me? Precisely nothing. It would have left the main problem unsolved. There was consolation in this, but also cause for despair. Here, in this city of millions of people, there were likely only a very few who knew that America offered a problem -- a problem which had to be solved if the world, as I saw it, was to be saved. Unless I was content to be a drone, I had to solve this problem for myself and without help. The third great fact, then, that arose from these midnight thoughts was that I could never be content with being a drone.
Yet, all the time, the economic question pressed. Day after day went by. Day after day I worked hard to find some niche into which I could step, whether for good or for a mere make-shift, that did not matter any longer. Just to mark off what may appear to be a low-water mark in the matter of humiliating my self-esteem, I will mention that one day during these last months of the year I happened across the address of an agency which supplied the households of the idle rich with domestic servants. I went there and argued that, though I had never myself been a footman or valet, yet in my father's house footmen and valets had been kept; I knew, therefore, what would be expected of them in the way of service. I need hardly say that my argument was unsuccessful. Not even an aristocrat with high-sounding titles could have broken into such respectable company as that of the liveried crews of the households of Messrs. Vanderlip or Gould, unless he had very good references and ample experience.
Then an incident happened which was to side-track me for a while and to end in a blow-out.
One evening, when I came home, I found a caller waiting for me, a young man of lively manners and neat appearance.
"Mr. Branden?" he greeted me briskly and shook

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hands. "A friend of yours gave me your name and address . . ."
"Which friend?" I wondered. "Have I friends?"
". . . as that of a person likely to be interested in a proposition which I have the honour to represent."
While he was speaking in a lively, business-like way, he backed me into a corner where an armchair stood into which I allowed myself to drop. For himself he drew up a straight-backed chair, sat down on its edge, and launched himself with amazing eloquence and volubility into a dissertation upon the excellence of Dr. Elliot's Five-Foot Shelf of the Best Books of the World, let me say, for I do not remember what books they were. I sat, fascinated by a display of oratorical and histrionic powers which, I thought, it must have taken years to train. Several times, while he went through his prodigious performance, I tried to interrupt and to tell him that he was wasting his time; that I did not care for the books; that I could not buy them even if I did care for them; he would not let me. He must have talked half an hour.
I marvelled at the accuracy of his information and the extent of his knowledge, and suddenly I saw a personal application; this was something I might be able to do. I watched him, profoundly absorbed. At last he had said as much as could be said about the books without plunging into the intricacies of literary criticism. Without a break, without as much as a transition, he pulled from his hip-pocket a heavy folder, flipped it open, and displayed to my astonished eyes how the whole five feet of leather-backs would look on my bookshelves. He rose, still talking, never stopping for even sufficient time to catch his breath, and put this display on the little table in my room, upright, so it would hold my eye, so I should not for a moment forget that there, within my reach, to be taken up at will and leisure, stood the World's Best Books in a Five-Foot Row.
And presto, prestidigito! I saw myself confronted with a large sheet of formal-looking paper; a fountain pen was

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persuasively pressed into my hand; a voice which became more and more insistent and imperative went on in an irresistible torrent, "And the best of it, my dear sir, is that we give you this treasure on very easy terms: five dollars down, and five a month."
An impressive pause; then the command of a general in battle: "Sign here!" An accusing finger pointed to a dotted line.
That finger had a nail which was not quite clean; the spell was broken. I did not sign, but burst out laughing.
My caller was inclined to be offended at my mirth; I placated him by explaining with the utmost candour why I could not dream of giving him an order. I seasoned my remarks with sufficient compliments for his great powers of speech and persuasion; and he was satisfied at last when I apologized for having taken up his time.
"Oh," he said, "that's all right; glad to have shown you anyway; we're doing missionary work."
"Missionary work?" I echoed. "Surely you are doing this for commercial reasons?"
"Of course," he replied, "a man has to live. But, at the price, you will realize that the immediate profit cannot be big. The public has to be educated, and the real profit will not come till it turns to the better class of books without being urged."
"Would you mind if I ask you a question?" I said. "Just how much do you make at this work?"
"Oh," he replied, "that depends; and it varies. Sometimes no more than twelve dollars a day."
"Twelve dollars a day!" I thought; I felt dizzy, just as I had felt when Mr. Bennett had casually informed me that his son was receiving ten dollars a week while learning the jeweller's trade.
"How long," I enquired, "do you have to learn before you become as expert as you are now?"
"That, too, depends," he replied. "A week or two. I have been with these people only two weeks myself."

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