It was as if he stood in the door of his elegant little office, comfortably dressed, talking to Sagar Morrison about the value of South Chicago real estate in which the latter was about to invest.
"How would you like to come in on that with me?" he heard Morrison say.
"Not me," he answered, just as he had years before."I have my hands full now."
The movement of his lips aroused him.He wondered whether he had really spoken.The next time he noticed anything of the sort he really did talk.
"Why don't you jump, you bloody fool?" he was saying."Jump!"
It was a funny English story he was telling to a company of actors.Even as his voice recalled him, he was smiling.A
crusty old codger, sitting near by, seemed disturbed; at least, he stared in a most pointed way.Hurstwood straightened up.The humour of the memory fled in an instant and he felt ashamed.For relief, he left his chair and strolled out into the streets.
One day, looking down the ad.columns of the "Evening World," he saw where a new play was at the Casino.Instantly, he came to a mental halt.Carrie had gone! He remembered seeing a poster of her only yesterday, but no doubt it was one left uncovered by the new signs.Curiously, this fact shook him up.He had almost to admit that somehow he was depending upon her being in the city.
Now she was gone.He wondered how this important fact had skipped him.Goodness knows when she would be back now.
Impelled by a nervous fear, he rose and went into the dingy hall, where he counted his remaining money, unseen.There were but ten dollars in all.
He wondered how all these other lodging-house people around him got along.They didn't seem to do anything.Perhaps they begged--unquestionably they did.Many was the dime he had given to such as they in his day.He had seen other men asking for money on the streets.Maybe he could get some that way.There was horror in this thought.
Sitting in the lodging-house room, he came to his last fifty cents.He had saved and counted until his health was affected.