the pleasure of officials. The hall of judgment was crowned by two immense American flags. The centre, and indeed the great body of the hall, was filled with immigrants in their stalls, a long series of classified third-class men and women. The walls of the hall were booking-offices, bank counters, inspectors' tables, stools of statisticians. Up above was a visitors' gallery where journalists and the curious might promenade and talk about the melting-pot, and America, "the refuge of the oppressed." Down below, among the clerks' offices, were exits; one gate led to Freedom and New York, another to quarantine, a third to the railway ferry, a fourth to the hospital and dining-room, to the place where unsuitable emigrants are imprisoned until there is a ship to take them back to their native land.
Somewhere also there was a place where marriages were solemnised. Engaged couples were there made man and wife before landing in New York. I was helping a girl who struggled with a huge basket, and a detective asked me if she were my sweetheart. If I could have said "Yes," as like as not we'd have been married off before we landed. America is extremely solicitous about the welfare of women, especially of poor unmarried women who come to her shores. So many women fall into the clutches of evil directly they land in the New World. The authorities generally refuse to admit a poor friendless girl, though there is a great demand for female labour all over the United States, and it is easy to get a place and earn an honest living.
It was a pathetic sight to see the doubtful men and women pass into the chamber where examination is prolonged, pathetic also to see the Russians and Poles empty their purses, exhibiting to men with good clothes and lasting "jobs" all the money they had in the world.
At half-past two I gave particulars of myself and showed the coin I had, and was passed.
"Have you ever been arrested?" asked the inspector.
Well, yes, I had. I was not disposed to lie. I had been arrested four or five times. In Russia you can't escape that.
"For a crime involving moral turpitude?" he went on.
"No, no."
"Have you got a job in America?" (This is a dangerous question; if you say 'Yes' you probably get sent back home; it is against American law to contract for foreign labour.)
I explained that I was a tramp.
This did not at all please the inspector. He would not accept that definition of my occupation, so he put me down as author.
"Are you an anarchist?"
"No."
"Are you willing to live in subordination to the laws of the United States?"
"Yes."
"Are you a polygamist?"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Do you believe a man may possess more than one wife at a time?"
"Certainly not."
"Have you any friends in New York?"
"Acquaintances, yes."
"Give me the address."
I gave him an address.
"How much money have you got?" … "Show me, please!" … And so on. I was let go.
At three in the afternoon I stood in another ferry-boat, and with a crowd of approved immigrants passed the City of New York. Success had melted most of us, and though we were terribly hungry, we had words and confidences for one another on that ferry-boat. We were ready to help one another to any extent in our power. That is what it feels like to have passed the Last Day and still believe in Heaven, to pass Ellis Island and still believe in America.
Two or three of us hastened to a restaurant. I sat down at a little table, and waited. So did the others, but we were making a mistake, for there were no waiters. We had as yet to learn the mechanism of a "Quick Lunch" shop; there was a certain procedure to be observed and followed, we must learn it if we wanted a dinner. I watched the first American citizen who came in, and did as he did. First I went to the cashier and got a paper slip on which were printed many numbers 5, 10, 15, 25, and so on in intervals of fives. These represented cents, and were so arranged for convenience in adding and for solid profit. At this restaurant nothing cost less than five cents (twopence halfpenny), and there were no intermediaries between five and ten, ten and fifteen, and so forth. The unit then was five cents, and not as in England two cents (one penny). Obviously this means enormous increase of takings in the long run. That five-cent unit is part of the foundation of American prosperity. I obtained my slip so numbered. Then I took a tray from a stack of trays and a glass from an array of glasses, a fork and a knife from the fork basket, and I went to the roast chicken counter and asked for roast chicken. A plate of hot roast chicken was put on my tray, and the white-hatted cook punched off twenty-five cents on my slip. I went to another counter and received a plate of bread and butter, and to yet another and sprinkled pepper and salt from the general sprinklers. I went and drew iced water. Then, like the slave of the lamp working for himself, I put the whole on my little table. When I had finished my first course I put my plate aside and took my tray to the cook and received a second, and when I had finished that I fetched my coffee.
"Well," thought I, looking round, "no waiters, that means no tips; there is not even a superfluous mendicant boy in charge of the swinging doors." So I began to learn that in America the working man pays no tips.
My companions at the other tables were getting through with their dinners and looking across at one another with congratulatory smiles. We would have sat together, but in this shop one table accommodated one customer only—an unsociable arrangement. I waited for them to finish, so that we could go out together.
Whilst doing so a man came up to me from another table and said very quietly:
"Just come over?"
"This morning," I replied.
He brightened up and asked:
"Looking for a job?"
"You don't mean to say I am being offered one already?" said I.
"That's about it, two dollars."
"Two dollars a day?"
"That's the idea."
"What's the work?"
"Brick-making."
It was brick-making up country for some Trust Company. I said I was staying in New York, couldn't go just yet. He might try my acquaintances. I pointed them out.
One of them, a Pole, said he would go. The contractor went out with us, and we accompanied him to his office. We took a street car. The fare was five cents, a "nickel," and it was necessary to put the coin in the slot of the conductor's money-box before entering. The conductor stood stiff, like an intelligent bit of machinery, and we were to him fares not humans. The five cents would take me to the other end of the city if I wished it, but there was no two-cent fare in case I wished to go a mile. That five-cent unit again!
We sat in the car and looked out of the windows, interested in every sight and sound. First we had glimpses of the East Side streets, all push-carts and barrows, like Sukhareva at Moscow. Then we saw the dark overhead railway and heard the first thunder of the Elevated train. We went up the Bowery, unlike any
