It must have been this laugh that stung me to hot fury, for in an instant I had lost all sense of cold and weariness and hunger, and I was strong and warm in the wild joy of the lust for blood. With one hand gripping his hairy throat I was pounding the porter’s eyes with my right fist in blows whose frequency and precision surprised me into greater joy. But there was a sudden end of clear memory when, with a full-armed swing of his huge fist the keeper struck me in the face and knocked me, limp and almost senseless, upon the planks, where I lay choking down gulps of blood which flowed from a cut against my teeth. [Illustration: I WAS STRONG AND WARM IN THE WILD JOY OF THE LUST FOR BLOOD.] Clark was bending over me. “What in -- did you hit him for, you -- fool?” he hissed at me. “I had a jolly good time doing it,” I explained; and I was sufficiently recovered to laugh a little at the momentary sport which I had had in making a fool of myself. Clark helped me to my feet, and we walked off together, only I could not walk very far at a stretch. He did not desert me, and he would not leave the subject of my folly. But he changed his point of view at length, and acknowledged, finally, that he was “glad that I had got in a few licks on the porter’s eye,” an emotion which I warmly shared. That day was chiefly memorable because of Clark’s final success in finding work. It came from a most unexpected quarter. We were walking together through Adams Street when a man touched Clark upon the shoulder and withdrew to the doorway of a shop. Clark recognized him at once as a foundry superintendent with whom he had been importunate for work, and his face lighted up with a hopefulness which made the moment almost tragic. I stood at the doorstep and listened. “Ain’t you found a job yet?” began the superintendent. “No.” “Well, I’ve been thinking about your case,” he continued. “We ain’t got a job for you at the foundry,” he hastened to explain, “but I’ve heard from a friend of mine in Milwaukee, and they’re short of men in your line. Could you go up there?” “I could walk,” said Clark. “Well, that ain’t necessary. I--I’m good for a ticket,” added the superintendent, with a look of embarrassment. And he was as good as his word, for he went with Clark to the station, where he added to the ticket a dollar, both of which were accepted as a loan. Clark was nearly mad with suppressed delight when he met me in the entrance of the post-office, where he had asked me to await his return. With his usual generosity he shared his good fortune with me, and, before we went to the railway station together we had a farewell dinner on beefsteak and onions and unlimited coffee and bread. My own success followed Clark’s by only a few days, when I was taken on as a hand-truckman in a factory on the West Side; but there is one intervening experience which belongs distinctively to this part of the general experiment.