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第9章 巨石生物，诞生！

　　He walked nervously to the corner and hurried down a side street.

　　These house details settled, Hurstwood visited some of theadvertised opportunities to purchase an interest in someflourishing down-town bar. After the palatial resort in AdamsStreet, he could not stomach the commonplace saloons which hefound advertised. He lost a number of days looking up these andfinding them disagreeable. He did, however, gain considerableknowledge by talking, for he discovered the influence of TammanyHall and the value of standing in with the police. The mostprofitable and flourishing places he found to be those whichconducted anything but a legitimate business, such as thatcontrolled by Fitzgerald and Moy. Elegant back rooms and privatedrinking booths on the second floor were usually adjuncts of veryprofitable places. He saw by portly keepers, whose shirt frontsshone with large diamonds, and whose clothes were properly cut,that the liquor business here, as elsewhere, yielded the samegolden profit.At last he found an individual who had a resort in Warren Street,which seemed an exce

　　"You see this handle," he said, reaching up to an electric cut-off, which was fastened to the roof. "This throws the currentoff or on. If you want to reverse the car you turn it over here.If you want to send it forward, you put it over here. If youwant to cut off the power, you keep it in the middle."

med and greedily eaten, had played havocwith bone and muscle. They were all pale, flabby, sunken-eyed,hollow-chested, with eyes that glinted and shone and lips thatwere a sickly red by contrast. Their hair was but half attendedto, their ears anaemic in hue, and their shoes broken in leatherand run down at heel and toe. They were of the class whichsimply floats and drifts, every wave of people washing up one, asbreakers do driftwood upon a stormy shore.

　　"Carrie doesn't seem to like her place very well," said Minnie toher husband when the latter came out, paper in hand, to sit inthe dining-room a few minutes.

　　"What good will it do?" he asked, holding the same strain offeeling.

　　"Still," he said, "what could I have done?"

　　"Aren't you very tired?" he said.

　　The man gave him a last push and closed the door. As he did so,Hurstwood slipped and fell in the snow. It hurt him, and somevague sense of shame returned. He began to cry and swearfoolishly.