"My pull wouldn't help a lot with the literary push." The Mayor's eyes again became keen. "And I suppose you now want somethin' o' the same sort--somethin' fancy?" The dizziness was subsiding. "Anything--so it's work!" The Mayor meditated a moment. "Well, I only know o' one job just now, and you wouldn't have it." "What is it?" demanded David, tensely. "The agent o' the house where I live told me a couple o' days ago he wanted a new janitor." "I'll take it!" "Sweepin'--scrubbin'--sortin' rubbish--everybody cussin' you--twelve dollars a month." The wages made David hesitate. He calculated. "I'll take it--if the agent will have me." "He'll have you. Rogers's got a special interest in chaps that're makin' the fight you're makin'." David half rose. "Hadn't I better see him at once?" he asked, anxiously. "The job may be taken any minute." "Set down, young man. That job ain't goin' to run away. Here comes breakfast. I'll go with you when we're through. Gee, I could eat a house." David made no boasts, but when he rose from his first meal since the midnight supper with Kate Morgan thirty-three hours before, he had effaced his share of the breakfast. He noted that the Mayor's portion had hardly been touched, and the Mayor saw he observed this. "I had a sudden turn o' the stomach," the Mayor explained. "I never know when it's goin' to let me eat, or when it's goin' to say there's nothin' doin'." They walked away through a deep cross street of red tenements with fire-escapes climbing the walls like stark, grotesque vines. David was filled with dread lest he might find the position already occupied. He wanted to run. But despite his suspense he had to notice that the Mayor was smiling at all the women on both sides of the street, and that every pretty one who passed was followed by a look over the Mayor's shoulder. At the end of five minutes they turned into a tenement of the better sort, on the large front window of whose first floor David read in gilt letters, "John Rogers--Real Estate." "Here's where I live--on the floor above," said the Mayor. "You just wait here in the hall a minute or two while I have a chat with Rogers." The Mayor entered the office, and David paced the narrow hallway. Would he get the job? No--this Rogers would never hire a thief. Anyhow, even if Rogers would, someone else had the job already. It couldn't be true that at last he was to gain a foothold--even so poor a foothold. No, this was to be merely one more rejection. At length the Mayor came out, carefully smoothing the few hairs that lined his crown like a sheet of music paper. "Rogers is waitin' for you; go right in. See you soon. Good-bye." He shook hands and went out, cautiously replacing his hat.