His stoutness had gone.With it, even the semblance of a fit in his clothes.Now he decided he must do something, and, walking about, saw another day go by, bringing him down to his last twenty cents--not enough to eat for the morrow.
Summoning all his courage, he crossed to Broadway and up to the Broadway Central hotel.Within a block he halted, undecided.A
big, heavy-faced porter was standing at one of the side entrances, looking out.Hurstwood purposed to appeal to him.
Walking straight up, he was upon him before he could turn away.
"My friend," he said, recognising even in his plight the man's inferiority, "is there anything about this hotel that I could get to do?"
The porter stared at him the while he continued to talk.
"I'm out of work and out of money and I've got to get something,--
it doesn't matter what.I don't care to talk about what I've been, but if you'd tell me how to get something to do, I'd be much obliged to you.It wouldn't matter if it only lasted a few days just now.I've got to have something."
The porter still gazed, trying to look indifferent.Then, seeing that Hurstwood was about to go on, he said:
"I've nothing to do with it.You'll have to ask inside."
Curiously, this stirred Hurstwood to further effort.
"I thought you might tell me."
The fellow shook his head irritably.
Inside went the ex-manager and straight to an office off the clerk's desk.One of the managers of the hotel happened to be there.Hurstwood looked him straight in the eye.
"Could you give me something to do for a few days?" he said.
"I'm in a position where I have to get something at once."
The comfortable manager looked at him, as much as to say: "Well, I should judge so."
"I came here," explained Hurstwood, nervously, "because I've been a manager myself in my day.I've had bad luck in a way but I'm not here to tell you that.I want something to do, if only for a week."