An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser Page A

be drawing nearer, and the fact that not long after this Mr. Sieberling, owing to his too obvious gallantries in connection with the fair sex, lost his place in the drug store, and Clyde came by a new and bony and chill superior who did not seem to want him as an assistant, he decided to quit—not at once, but rather to see, on such errands as took him out of the store, if he could not find something else. Incidentally in so doing, looking here and there, he one day thought he would speak to the manager of the fountain which was connected with the leading drug store in the principal hotel of the city—the latter a great twelve-story affair, which represented, as he saw it, the quintessence of luxury and ease. Its windows were always so heavily curtained; the main entrance (he had never ventured to look beyond that) was a splendiferous combination of a glass and iron awning, coupled with a marble corridor lined with palms. Often he had passed here, wondering with boyish curiosity what the nature of the life of such a place might be. Before its doors, so many taxis and automobiles were always in waiting.
    To-day, being driven by the necessity of doing something for himself, he entered the drug store which occupied the principal corner, facing the 14th Street at Baltimore, and finding a girl cashier in a small glass cage near the door, asked of her who was in charge of the soda fountain. Interested by his tentative and uncertain manner, as well as his deep and rather appealing eyes, and instinctively judging that he was looking for something to do, she observed: “Why, Mr. Secor, there, the manager of the store.” She nodded in the direction of a short, meticulously dressed man of about thirty-five, who was arranging an especial display of toilet novelities on the top of a glass case. Clyde approached him, and being still very dubious as to how one went about getting anything in life, and finding him engrossed in what he was doing, stood first on one foot and then on the other, until at last, sensing some one was hovering about for something, the man turned: “Well?” he queried.
    “You don’t happen to need a soda fountain helper, do you?” Clyde cast at him a glance that said as plain as anything could, “If you have any such place, I wish you would please give it to me. I need it.”
    “No, no, no,” replied this individual, who was blond and vigorous and by nature a little irritable and contentious. He was about to turn away, but seeing a flicker of disappointment and depression pass over Clyde’s face, he turned and added, “Ever work in a place like this before?”
    “No place as fine as this. No, sir,” replied Clyde, rather fancifully moved by all that was about him. “I’m working now down at Mr. Klinkle’s store at 7th and Brooklyn, but it isn’t anything like this one and I’d like to get something better if I could.”
    “Uh,” went on his interviewer, rather pleased by the innocent tribute to the superiority of his store. “Well, that’s reasonable enough. But there isn’t anything here right now that I could offer you. We don’t make many changes. But if you’d like to be a bell-boy, I can tell you where you might get a place. They’re looking for an extra boy in the hotel inside there right now. The captain of the boys was telling me he was in need of one. I should think that would be as good as helping about a soda fountain, any day.”
    Then seeing Clyde’s face suddenly brighten, he added: “But you mustn’t say that I sent you, because I don’t know you. Just ask for Mr. Squires inside there, under the stairs, and he can tell you all about it.”
    At the mere mention of work in connection with so imposing an institution as the Green-Davidson, and the possibility of his getting it, Clyde first stared, felt himself tremble the least bit with excitement, then thanking his advisor for his kindness, went direct to a green-marbled doorway which opened from the rear of this drug-store