By the middle of that Saturday afternoon I had fairly given up the search for work, and I found myself on State Street, wandering aimlessly in the hope of an odd job. Hunger and utter weariness were playing their part, as well as the loneliness and the sense of imprisonment. One had the feeling that, if he could but sit down somewhere and rest, all other troubles would vanish for the time at least. And there were, I knew, many public rooms to which I could go in unquestioned right or privilege, but once within their warmth, I was well aware that to keep awake would tax all my power of will, and that, as a sleeping lounger, I should soon be turned adrift again. The street was coated with a murky mire, kneaded by hoofs and wheels to the consistency of paste, and tracked by countless feet upon the pavements, where it lay as thick almost as on the cobbles. The skyline on both sides was a ragged _sierra_, mounting from three to five and seven stories, then leaping suddenly on the right to the appalling height of the Masonic Temple, and grotesque in all its length with rearing signs and flagstaffs that pierced the smoky vapor of the upper air, while the sagging halyards fluttered like fine threads in the icy gusts from off the lake. Whole fronts of flamboyant architecture were almost concealed behind huge bombastic signs, while other advertising devices hung suspended overhead, watches three feet in diameter, and boots and hats of a giant race. The shop windows were draped with the scalloped fringes of idle awnings, and merely a glance at their displays was enough to disclose a commercial difference separated by only the width of the thoroughfare, a difference like that between Twenty-third Street and the Bowery.