The Bomb | Page 7

little
English, yet whose self-confidence was in itself no mean stock-in-trade.
"In five years I shall be rich," was always on the tip of his tongue--five
years! He never looked at a book, but he was always trying to talk
English with some one or other, and at the end of the voyage he could
understand more English than I could, though he could not read it at all,
whilst I read it with ease.. . . When we parted on the wharf he drifted
out of my life; but I know that he is now the famous Newport banker,
and fabulously rich. He had only one ambition, and went in blinkers to
attain it; desire in his case being a forecast of capacity.
We reached Sandy Hook late one evening, and ran up to New York
next day. Everything was hurry and excitement; the cheerful tone and
bustle made me feel very lonesome. When we landed I went to look for
lodgings with Henschel, who was only too glad to have me with him,
and, thanks to his command of English and the freemasonry of his craft,
we soon found a room and board in a by-street on the east side. Next
day Henschel and I started to look for work. I little thought that I was
going gaily to undreamed-of misery. If I try to recall now some of the
sufferings of that time, it is because my terrible experiences throw light
on the tragic after-story. Never did any one go out to seek work more

cheerfully or with better resolutions. I had made up my mind to work as
hard as I could; whatever I was given to do, I said to myself, I would do
it with my might, do it so that no one coming after me should do it as
well. I had tested this resolution of mine again and again in my school
life, and had always found it succeed. I had won always, even in the
Gymnasium, even in Prima. Why should not the same resolve bring me
to the front in the wider competition of life? Poor fool that I was.
On that first morning I was up at five o'clock, and kept repeating to
myself, over and over again as I dressed, the English phrases I should
have to use in the day, till they all came trippingly to my tongue, and
when at six o'clock I went out into the air I was boyishly excited and
eager for the struggle. The May morning had all the beauty and
freshness of youth; the air was warm, yet light and quick. I fell in love
with the broad, sunny streets. The people, too, walked rapidly, the
street cars spun past; everything was brisk and cheerful; I felt curiously
exhilarated and light-hearted.
First of all I went to a well-known American newspaper office and
asked to see the editor. After waiting some time I was told curtly that
the editor was not in.
"When will he be in?" I questioned.
"Tonight, I guess," replied the janitor, "about eleven," with a stare that
sized me up from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. "If you
hey a letter for him, you kin leave it."
"I have no letter," I confessed, shamefacedly.
"Oh, shucks!" he exclaimed, in utter contempt. What did "shucks"
mean? I asked myself in vain. In spite of repeated efforts I could get no
further information from this Cerberus. At last, tired of my importunity,
he slammed the window in my face, with--"go scratch your head,
Dutchy."
The fool angered me; besides, why should he take pleasure in rudeness?
It flattered his vanity, I suppose, to be able to treat another man with

contempt.
I was a little cast down by this first rebuff, and when I went again into
the streets I found the sun hotter than I had ever known it; but I trudged
off to a German paper I had heard of, and asked again to see the editor.
The man at the door was plainly a German, so I spoke German to him.
He answered with a South German accent strong enough to skate
on--"Can't you speak United States?"
"Yes," I said, and repeated my question carefully in American.
"No, he ain't in," was the reply; "and I guess ven he comes in, he von't
vant to see you." The tone was worse than the words.
I received several similar rebuffs that first morning, and before noon
my stock of courage or impudence was nearly exhausted. Nowhere the
slightest sympathy, the smallest desire to help: on all sides contempt for
my pretensions, delight in my discomfiture.
I went back to the boardinghouse more weary than if I had done three
days' work. The midday