Jesse Lynch Williams

“ Business men don't take on people because they are sorry for them, but because they want help. I don't propose to let anybody give me money. All I want is a chance to earn it. Now, which way shall I turn, up or down Broadway? It doesn't seem to make much difference." He walked up Broadway.
"This is making a tremendous appetite!" he thought, smiling grimly.
It was Saturday evening, and it was just six o'clock. All New York seemed to be merrily hurrying home. Young looked at the faces. ”

“ He looked at the crowd. He could not see who it was at first.
"Why do they want to ridicule me before all New York?" he thought, reddening, but boldly looking the faces over. "There! My own classmates, too, Lansing and Lee and——"
"Helloo! Deacon! Stick your head out!" they cried in concert, as they used to do on the old campus. "Why wouldn't you look before? Wait a minute, we're coming up!" The faces disappeared.
By this time the crowd had increased. The sidewalk had become jammed. A college cheer always brings a crowd. A policeman hurried down the block. ”

“ His heart gave a bound of homesickness for the old, bright days that seemed long ago.
"But what good did my athletics ever do me," he asked himself again, "except give me a large appetite, which I can't earn money enough to satisfy?" ”

“ As it was early in the day only four of his classmates were there to see him off; but as the train started out Young stood on the platform and waved his hat to them.
"It's a pretty good thing to go to college," he was thinking to himself, "for the friends one makes, if nothing else."
One of the four, as they turned away, remarked, "It's easy enough to find something to do when you're a well-known athlete."
Another remarked, "Deacon would not have got that job on his football record if he hadn't had a high stand in class." ”

“ Then the company went up in smoke, and the classmate went abroad with his wealthy parents, and Will Young was left alone in New York, with the alternative of going home humiliated or of finding something else to do.
For a week he had been pacing the streets of the great, selfish city, looking first for a "profitable position," and finally for a "job" with which to support life. Yesterday he had broken his last dollar. Of this he had spent fifteen cents for a bed in a miserable place in the Bowery, and had been kept awake all night by a man in the next room with delirium tremens. ”

“ Henderson said that the young man who had the gumption to push ahead and try everything until he got something, no matter what, was the kind of a man he was looking for; and I tell you that's the kind that succeeds in business. ”

“ What I wanted was to see if you didn't need another man to pull the weights in the window. That fellow must get tired sometimes, doesn't he?"
The other had brightened up at this suggestion, then looked doubtful. "I don't believe you have the requirements," he said. "You see we have to have men with a great deal of development, or the advertisement is—no advertisement."
"I guess we can arrange about that all right." answered Young, smiling. "Do you need an extra man—that is the question." Young had a pretty good opinion of his own muscles. ”

“ Young was eager to take it but this was business. "See here," he said, "that other man is all right, but my muscles are better, and my skin is healthier. Besides, my face is, with all due respect to him, more—well, educated-looking. You'll have to give me more than twenty-five cents an hour for a job like that." And they finally compromised on forty-five cents. ”