It is Bob who stands by and watches with me then, as on that
night.
The assignment that fell to my lot when the book was made out, the
first against which my name was written in a New York editor's book,
was a lunch of some sort at the Astor House. I have forgotten what was
the special occasion. I remember the bearskin hats of the Old Guard in
it, but little else. In a kind of haze I beheld half the savory viands
of earth spread under the eyes and nostrils of a man who had not tasted
food for the third day. I did not ask for any. I had reached that
stage of starvation that is like the still centre of a cyclone, when no
hunger is left. But it may be that a touch of it all crept into my
report; for when the editor had read it, he said briefly:
"You will do. Take that desk, and report at ten every morning, sharp."
That night, when I was dismissed from the office, I went up the Bowery
to No. 185, where a Danish family kept a boarding-house up under the
roof. I had work and wages now, and could pay. On the stairs I fell
in a swoon and lay there till some one stumbled over me in the dark and
carried me in. My strength had at last given out.
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