Page:The Jungle (1906).djvu/324

 then he gave him a note to Mr. Harmon, one of the head managers of Durham's:—

"The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I would like you to find him a good place, for important reasons. He was once indiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to overlook that."

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this. "What does he mean by indiscreet'?" he asked.

"I was blacklisted, sir," said Jurgis.

At which the other frowned. "Blacklisted?" he said. "How do you mean?"

And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment. He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. "I—that is―I had difficulty in getting a place," he stammered.

"What was the matter?"

"I got into a quarrel with a foreman—not my own boss, sir—and struck him."

"I see," said the other, and meditated for a few moments. "What do you wish to do?" he asked.

"Anything, sir," said Jurgis—"only I had a broken arm this winter, and so I have to be careful."

"How would it suit you to be a night-watchman?"

"That wouldn't do, sir. I have to be among the men at night."

"I see—politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?"

"Yes, sir," said Jurgis.

And Mr. Harmon called a time-keeper and said, "Take this man to Pat Murphy and tell him to find room for him somehow."

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where, in the days gone by, he had come begging for a job. Now he walked jauntily, and smiled to himself, seeing the frown that came to the boss's face as the time-keeper said, "Mr. Harmon says to put this man on." It would overcrowd his department and spoil the record he was trying to make—but he said not a word except "All right."

And so Jurgis became a working-man once more; and