was still in the clutch of the past. He looked about the room,
perplexed, alarmed, wondering where he was, until he caught sight
of the pile of manuscripts in the corner. Then the wheels of
memory slipped ahead through four years of time, and he was aware
of the present, of the books he had opened and the universe he had
won from their pages, of his dreams and ambitions, and of his love
for a pale wraith of a girl, sensitive and sheltered and ethereal,
who would die of horror did she witness but one moment of what he
had just lived through – one moment of all the muck of life through
which he had waded.
He arose to his feet and confronted himself in the looking-glass.
“And so you arise from the mud, Martin Eden,” he said solemnly.
“And you cleanse your eyes in a great brightness, and thrust your
shoulders among the stars, doing what all life has done, letting
the ‘ape and tiger die’ and wresting highest heritage from all
powers that be.”
He looked more closely at himself and laughed.
“A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh?” he queried. “Well, never
mind. You licked Cheese-Face, and you’ll lick the editors if it
takes twice eleven years to do it in. You can’t stop here. You’ve
got to go on. It’s to a finish, you know.”
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
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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.
“Sounds good to me. My name’s Dawson, Joe Dawson, an’ I’m tryin’
to scare up a laundryman.”
“Too much for me.” Martin caught an amusing glimpse of himself
ironing fluffy white things that women wear. But he had taken a
liking to the other, and he added: “I might do the plain washing.
I learned that much at sea.” Joe Dawson thought visibly for a
moment.
“Look here, let’s get together an’ frame it up. Willin’ to
listen?”
Martin nodded.
“This is a small laundry, up country, belongs to Shelly Hot
Springs, – hotel, you know. Two men do the work, boss and
assistant. I’m the boss. You don’t work for me, but you work
under me. Think you’d be willin’ to learn?”
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Martin paused to think. The prospect was alluring. A few months
of it, and he would have time to himself for study. He could work
hard and study hard.
“Good grub an’ a room to yourself,” Joe said.
That settled it. A room to himself where he could burn the
midnight oil unmolested.
“But work like hell,” the other added.
Martin caressed his swelling shoulder-muscles significantly. “That
came from hard work.”
“Then let’s get to it.” Joe held his hand to his head for a
moment. “Gee, but it’s a stem-winder. Can hardly see. I went
down the line last night – everything – everything. Here’s the
frame-up. The wages for two is a hundred and board. I’ve ben
drawin’ down sixty, the second man forty. But he knew the biz.
You’re green. If I break you in, I’ll be doing plenty of your work
at first. Suppose you begin at thirty, an’ work up to the forty.
I’ll play fair. Just as soon as you can do your share you get the
forty.”
“I’ll go you,” Martin announced, stretching out his hand, which the
other shook. “Any advance? – for rail-road ticket and extras?”
“I blew it in,” was Joe’s sad answer, with another reach at his
aching head. “All I got is a return ticket.”
“And I’m broke – when I pay my board.”
“Jump it,” Joe advised.
“Can’t. Owe it to my sister.”
Joe whistled a long, perplexed whistle, and racked his brains to
little purpose.
“I’ve got the price of the drinks,” he said desperately. “Come on,
an’ mebbe we’ll cook up something.”
Martin declined.
“Water-wagon?”
This time Martin nodded, and Joe lamented, “Wish I was.”
“But I somehow just can’t,” he said in extenuation. “After I’ve
ben workin’ like hell all week I just got to booze up. If I
didn’t, I’d cut my throat or burn up the premises. But I’m glad
you’re on the wagon. Stay with it.”
Martin knew of the enormous gulf between him and this man – the
gulf the books had made; but he found no difficulty in crossing
back over that gulf. He had lived all his life in the working-
class world, and the CAMARADERIE of labor was second nature with
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him. He solved the difficulty of transportation that was too much
for the other’s aching head. He would send his trunk up to Shelly
Hot Springs on Joe’s ticket. As for himself, there was his wheel.
It was seventy miles, and he could ride it on Sunday and be ready
for work Monday morning. In the meantime he would go home and pack
up. There was no one to say good-by to. Ruth and her whole family
were spending the long summer in the Sierras, at Lake Tahoe.
He arrived at Shelly Hot Springs, tired and dusty, on Sunday night.
Joe greeted him exuberantly. With a wet towel bound about his
aching brow, he had been at work all day.
“Part of last week’s washin’ mounted up, me bein’ away to get you,”
he explained. “Your box arrived all right. It’s in your room.
But it’s a hell of a thing to call a trunk. An’ what’s in it?
Gold bricks?”
Joe sat on the bed while Martin unpacked. The box was a packing-
case for breakfast food, and Mr. Higginbotham had charged him half
a dollar for it. Two rope handles, nailed on by Martin, had
technically transformed it into a trunk eligible for the baggage-
car. Joe watched, with bulging eyes, a few shirts and several
changes of underclothes come out of the box, followed by books, and
more books.
“Books clean to the bottom?” he asked.
Martin nodded, and went on arranging the books on a kitchen table
which served in the room in place of a wash-stand.
“Gee!” Joe exploded, then waited in silence for the deduction to
arise in his brain. At last it came.
“Say, you don’t care for the girls – much?” he queried.
“No,” was the answer. “I used to chase a lot before I tackled the