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“It was a man that did me a mean trick once,” answered Jurgis.
“Who is he?”
“He's a foreman in Brown's or used to be. His name's Connor.”
And the other gave a start. “Connor!” he cried. “Not Phil Connor!”
“Yes,” said Jurgis, “that's the fellow. Why?”
“Good God!” exclaimed the other, “then you're in for it, old man! I can't help you!”
“Not help me! Why not?”
“Why, he's one of Scully's biggest men—he's a member of the War-Whoop League, and they talked of sending him to the legislature! Phil Connor! Great heavens!”
Jurgis sat dumb with dismay.
“Why, he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to!” declared the other.
“Can't I have Scully get me off before he finds out about it?” asked Jurgis, at length.
“But Scully's out of town,” the other answered. “I don't even know where he is—he's run away to dodge the strike.”
That was a pretty mess, indeed. Poor Jurgis sat half-dazed. His pull had run up against a bigger pull, and he was down and out! “But what am I going to do?” he asked, weakly.
“How should I know?” said the other. “I shouldn't even dare to get bail for you—why, I might ruin myself for life!”
Again there was silence. “Can't you do it for me,” Jurgis asked, “and pretend that you didn't know who I'd hit?”
“But what good would that do you when you came to stand trial?” asked Harper. Then he sat buried in thought for a minute or two. “There's nothing—unless it's this,” he said. “I could have your bail reduced; and then if you had the money you could pay it and skip.”
“How much will it be?” Jurgis asked, after he had had this explained more in detail.
“I don't know,” said the other. “How much do you own?”
“I've got about three hundred dollars,” was the answer.
“Well,” was Harper's reply, “I'm not sure, but I'll try and get you off for that. I'll take the risk for friendship's sake—for I'd hate to see you sent to state's prison for a year or two.”
And so finally Jurgis ripped out his bankbook—which was sewed up in his trousers—and signed an order, which “Bush” Harper wrote, for all the money to be paid out. Then the latter went and got it, and hurried to the court, and explained to the magistrate that Jurgis was a decent fellow and a friend of Scully's, who had been attacked by a strike-breaker. So the bail was reduced to three hundred dollars, and Harper went on it himself; he did not tell this to Jurgis, however—nor did he tell him that when the time for trial came it would be an easy matter for him to avoid the forfeiting of the bail, and pocket the three hundred dollars as his reward for the risk of offending Mike Scully! All that he told Jurgis was that he was now free, and that the best thing he could do was to clear out as quickly as possible; and so Jurgis overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and fourteen cents that was left him out of all his bank account, and put it with the two dollars and quarter that was left from his last night's celebration, and boarded a streetcar and got off at the other end of Chicago.
Poor Jurgis was now an outcast and a tramp once more. He was crippled—he was as literally crippled as any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out of its shell. He had been shorn, at one cut, of all those mysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a living easily and to escape the consequences of his actions. He could no longer command a job when he wanted it; he could no longer steal with impunity—he must take his chances with the common herd. Nay worse, he dared not mingle with the herd—he must hide himself, for he was one marked out for destruction. His old companions would betray him, for the sake of the influence they would gain thereby; and he would be made to suffer, not merely for the offense he had committed, but for others which would be laid at his door, just as had been done for some poor devil on the occasion of that assault upon the “country customer” by him and Duane.
And also he labored under another handicap now. He had acquired new standards of living, which were not easily to be altered. When he had been out of work before, he had been content if he could sleep in a doorway or under a truck out of the rain, and if he could get fifteen cents a day for saloon lunches. But now he desired all sorts of other things, and suffered because he had to do without them. He must have a drink now and then, a drink for its own sake, and apart from the food that came with it. The craving for it was strong enough to master every other consideration—he would have it, though it were his last nickel and he had to starve the balance of the day in consequence.
Jurgis became once more a besieger of factory gates. But never since he had been in Chicago had he stood less chance of getting a job than just then. For one thing, there was the economic crisis, the million or two of men who had been out of work in the spring and summer, and were not yet all back, by any means. And then there was the strike, with seventy thousand men and women all over the country idle for a couple of months—twenty thousand in Chicago, and many of them now seeking work throughout the city. It did not remedy matters that a few days later the strike was given up and about half the strikers went back to work; for every one taken on, there was a “scab” who gave up and fled. The ten or fifteen thousand “green” Negroes, foreigners, and criminals were now being turned loose to shift for themselves. Everywhere Jurgis went he kept meeting them, and he was in an agony of fear lest some one of them should know that he was “wanted.” He would have left Chicago, only by the time he had realized his danger he was almost penniless; and it would be better to go to jail than to be caught out in the country in the winter time.
At the end of about ten days Jurgis had only a few pennies left; and he had not yet found a job—not even a day's work at anything, not a chance to carry a satchel. Once again, as when he had come out of the hospital, he was bound hand and foot, and facing the grisly phantom of starvation. Raw, naked terror possessed him, a maddening passion that would never leave him, and that wore him down more quickly than the actual want of food. He was going to die of hunger! The fiend reached out its scaly arms for him—it touched him, its breath came into his face; and he would cry out for the awfulness of it, he would wake up in the night, shuddering, and bathed in perspiration, and start up and flee. He would walk, begging for work, until he was exhausted; he could not remain still—he would wander on, gaunt and haggard, gazing about him with restless eyes. Everywhere he went, from one end of the vast city to the other, there were hundreds of others like him; everywhere was the sight of plenty and the merciless hand of authority waving them away. There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.
