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By Root 1489 0

if holding himself together, giving off the effect of persistent sneering. Suddenly, his expression seemed to alter from a sneer to a pout. Studs decided he was a big sack of mush, and shifted his eyes to the floor, uneasy because he had stared so long at the fellow. Beside him, a weak-shouldered little man sat, nervously folding and opening his fingers, his wrists narrow and powerless, his face blown with yellowish, unhealthy fat, a tb face. He wondered what about this fellow, and the bull-necked one, and the gray-haired man, and the others? They all must be hoping for a job, and maybe they needed one just as much as he did. If he got a job, it would mean some of them would be s. o. l. Well, the same would apply to him if they got jobs. It was just the breaks. A dark foreigner hurriedly emerged from an inner door on the right, crowded through the gate with eyes on the floor, probably to avoid meeting the questioning stares of the waiting applicants. He departed. No soap for that guy, Studs could see. The office boy barked out a name, and a little fellow in a loud shabby gray suit swung through the gate and disappeared inside the inner door on the right.

Studs felt let down because the fellow who had just come from his interview hadn’t, it seemed, gotten anything. If these fellows ahead of him couldn’t, how could he? Still, if he was to land something, most of these others would have to get the bums’ rush, and each one who did meant one less rival. He tried to hope. And looking around, he could see the others must be thinking much the same as he was, because they all sat waiting, their faces hardening, their muscles tight, alert, scraping their feet, making all sorts of little motions and gestures because they were so nervous.

The freckle-faced office boy was checking over a stack of cards, and, watching him, Studs got the feeling that the punk was showing off, trying to tell them all that he had a job and they didn’t. Just the kind of a face that Studs would like to have mashed in a little. He stared at the wall above the office boy. He wished the waiting could be shortened.

The small fellow in the loud shabby suit appeared through the gates, smiling artificially. Again Studs could feel how they became tense. The gray-haired man went in. Two tall fellows entered, spoke to the office boy, filled out cards, waited, standing to the left of Studs’ bench and he enjoyed seeing how nervous and jumpy they were. He told himself that misery loved company. Well, if he failed here, he wouldn’t be alone. If he made a fool out of himself, well, maybe others would, too.

The mush-faced, bull-necked fellow stretched out his legs and opened a copy of The Chicago Questioner. Studs pulled out his newspaper and looked at the front page. Police blamed Reds for recent eviction riots in the Black Belt. Reds must be nigger-lovers. Mayor says city finances in dangerous condition. That was bad, all right. Just what Barney McCormack had told his old man. Forced labor of women on Russian boats. Maybe every night the men lined up outside the women’s cabins. How would the women like that? But there weren’t enough details in the paper. He skipped the account of farmers rioting with guns and pitchforks, and avidly turned to one next to it. Sixteen-year-old girl found unconscious in forest preserve. Did a guy pulling such a stunt get anything worth the effort? He folded up his newspaper and noticed that the mushy-faced fellow had gone in, and that there were three more talking to the office boy. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock already. Seemed he might waste the whole morning here and get out too late to look any place else until after lunch. Might as well get up and leave, because the way they kept coming out of that office, glum and hasty, there didn’t seem to be much chance here. A nice smoke would go good, too, only for the doctor’s orders. He’d stick it here, too, damn it if he wouldn’t, and find out. Getting up and leaving now would just be showing that he had no guts. This might be just his chance. After all these guys getting the air, he