"
The orator finally emerges from the building. He is surrounded by friends,
questioners. For two blocks he has company. Then he is alone. He stands
waiting for a street car. Some of the audience pass by without recognizing
him.
The street car comes and the orator gets on. He finds a seat. His head
drops against the window and his eyes close. And the car sweeps away,
taking with it its load of sleepy men and women who have stayed up too
late--including a messiah of the proletaire who dreams of leading the
masses out of bondage.
THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY
"You'll not use my name," he said, "because my family would be exceedingly
grieved over the notoriety the thing would bring them."
Fifty or sixty or seventy--it was hard to tell how old he was. He looked
like a panhandler and talked like a scholar. Life had knocked him out and
walked over him. There was no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach,
no hope in his heart. He was asking for a job--some kind of writing job.
His hands were trembling and his face twitched. Despair underlay his
words, but he kept it under. Hunger made his body jerked and his eyes
shine with an unmannerly eagerness. But his words remained suave. He
removed a pair of cracked nose-glasses and held them between his thumb and
forefinger and gestured politely with them.
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