Chapter XVI

CHAPTER XVI

The alarm-clock went off, jerking Martin out of sleep with a
suddenness that would have given headache to one with less splendid
constitution. Though he slept soundly, he awoke instantly, like a
cat, and he awoke eagerly, glad that the five hours of
unconsciousness were gone. He hated the oblivion of sleep. There
was too much to do, too much of life to live. He grudged every
moment of life sleep robbed him of, and before the clock had ceased
its clattering he was head and ears in the washbasin and thrilling
to the cold bite of the water.

But he did not follow his regular programme. There was no
unfinished story waiting his hand, no new story demanding
articulation. He had studied late, and it was nearly time for
breakfast. He tried to read a chapter in Fiske, but his brain was
restless and he closed the book. To-day witnessed the beginning of
the new battle, wherein for some time there would be no writing.
He was aware of a sadness akin to that with which one leaves home
and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was
it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children
that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among
them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The
Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy,"
his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the
corner for lack of stamps, won his keenest approbation.

"I can't understand," he murmured. "Or maybe it's the editors who
can't understand. There's nothing wrong with that. They publish
worse every month. Everything they publish is worse - nearly
everything, anyway."

After breakfast he put the type-writer in its case and carried it
down into Oakland.

"I owe a month on it," he told the clerk in the store. "But you
tell the manager I'm going to work and that I'll be in in a month
or so and straighten up."

He crossed on the ferry to San Francisco and made his way to an
employment office. "Any kind of work, no trade," he told the
agent; and was interrupted by a new-comer, dressed rather
foppishly, as some workingmen dress who have instincts for finer
things. The agent shook his head despondently.

"Nothin' doin' eh?" said the other. "Well, I got to get somebody
to-day."

He turned and stared at Martin, and Martin, staring back, noted the
puffed and discolored face, handsome and weak, and knew that he had
been making a night of it.

"Lookin' for a job?" the other queried. "What can you do?"

"Hard labor, sailorizing, run a type-writer, no shorthand, can sit
on a horse, willing to do anything and tackle anything," was the
answer.

The other nodded.