piece of the action I could put away fourteen hamburgers, no trouble at all.
As cigarette boy, I didn’t actually sell cigarettes. I gave them out for club tickets, or chits. No money was supposed to change hands. That was a depressing thought, so I soon remedied the situation. I got a nice little side line going, selling cigarettes for less per pack than the members paid for the chits. My racket was doomed, however. I found out that at the end of every month the Kaiser took careful inventory of the stock and checked it against the sale of chits. Well, I would worry about that when the time came. But when the time came I had nothing to worry about, since I no longer worked there.
Coming off my shift one night I was starved, as usual, so I sneaked down to the kitchen and swiped a roast chicken. As luck would have it, Kaiser Wilhelm stepped into the elevator I was riding back upstairs. I shifted the chicken quickly behind me, stuffing it under my shirt. But my look must have given me away. The Kaiser grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. The roast chicken fell to the elevator floor, and that was the end of my employment at the Freundschaft Club.
My next two positions were in the cloak-and-suit industry, farther south in Manhattan. I was hired first as a ragpicker. My job was to sweep up all the rags from the cutting-room floor and stuff them in huge bags, to be weighed out at the end of the day. At the end of one day, a bag of rags weighed suspiciously high. That was because I was asleep in it. I was fired.
I was then hired down the street as a delivery boy for Edwards, Engel & Lefkowitz, another cloak-and-suit house. I lasted much longer there-a week and a half. For once, I wasn’t fired. I resigned. I was ordered to deliver a monstrous bundle of suits to Wanamaker’s Department Store. By the time I made it down to Astor Place, I was so exhausted I decided to stay there and apply for a job at Wanamaker’s.
I was sorry to leave the garment district. I had just worked out a dodge for getting a full-course meal for five cents. This required that I eat in a long, narrow restaurant at rush hour, when the joint was jammed like a six-o’clock subway car. I would order a full-course meal at a table in the rear, then take the check and fight my way to a table in the front, where I’d order a sweet roll and coffee. The check for this-for five cents-was the one I’d pay, having torn up the check for the deluxe luncheon.
I had to watch my pennies that year. I was still paying off the money Minnie had borrowed from Uncle Al, and I kicked in most of the rest of my salary to the family. This left me barely enough for carfare, plus a nickel a day for dinner, plus an occasional two cents to treat myself to a Horton’s ice-cream cone.
Once I lost my carfare home and went into a cigar store to borrow a nickel. I offered the counterman my vest as security. Without a word he went to the back of the store. He returned holding a vest exactly like mine. “I been stuck with this one you gave me for six months now,” he said. “No soap.” It was the same old story. The other vest was Chico’s. He’d been there before me.
So anyway I gave the department stores a whirl. I was fired from Wanamaker’s when I was caught in a crap game. I worked for Stern’s for a few days, and also for Gimbel’s. Forgotten why Stern’s and Gimbel’s fired me, which is probably just as well.
Next in my steady rise to becoming a failure in business, I was a cash-boy at Siegel & Cooper’s, a store to which I was attracted by reason of its having an escalator. I had ridden only once on an escalator. I thought it would be fun to ride one up and down all day and get paid for it.
When I got the job, one of the first things they told me was that the escalators were for customers only. All employees had to use the back stairs.
Not discouraged, I struck up a friendship with the escalator guard, who seemed like a sympathetic fellow. He was. When
As cigarette boy, I didn’t actually sell cigarettes. I gave them out for club tickets, or chits. No money was supposed to change hands. That was a depressing thought, so I soon remedied the situation. I got a nice little side line going, selling cigarettes for less per pack than the members paid for the chits. My racket was doomed, however. I found out that at the end of every month the Kaiser took careful inventory of the stock and checked it against the sale of chits. Well, I would worry about that when the time came. But when the time came I had nothing to worry about, since I no longer worked there.
Coming off my shift one night I was starved, as usual, so I sneaked down to the kitchen and swiped a roast chicken. As luck would have it, Kaiser Wilhelm stepped into the elevator I was riding back upstairs. I shifted the chicken quickly behind me, stuffing it under my shirt. But my look must have given me away. The Kaiser grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. The roast chicken fell to the elevator floor, and that was the end of my employment at the Freundschaft Club.
My next two positions were in the cloak-and-suit industry, farther south in Manhattan. I was hired first as a ragpicker. My job was to sweep up all the rags from the cutting-room floor and stuff them in huge bags, to be weighed out at the end of the day. At the end of one day, a bag of rags weighed suspiciously high. That was because I was asleep in it. I was fired.
I was then hired down the street as a delivery boy for Edwards, Engel & Lefkowitz, another cloak-and-suit house. I lasted much longer there-a week and a half. For once, I wasn’t fired. I resigned. I was ordered to deliver a monstrous bundle of suits to Wanamaker’s Department Store. By the time I made it down to Astor Place, I was so exhausted I decided to stay there and apply for a job at Wanamaker’s.
I was sorry to leave the garment district. I had just worked out a dodge for getting a full-course meal for five cents. This required that I eat in a long, narrow restaurant at rush hour, when the joint was jammed like a six-o’clock subway car. I would order a full-course meal at a table in the rear, then take the check and fight my way to a table in the front, where I’d order a sweet roll and coffee. The check for this-for five cents-was the one I’d pay, having torn up the check for the deluxe luncheon.
I had to watch my pennies that year. I was still paying off the money Minnie had borrowed from Uncle Al, and I kicked in most of the rest of my salary to the family. This left me barely enough for carfare, plus a nickel a day for dinner, plus an occasional two cents to treat myself to a Horton’s ice-cream cone.
Once I lost my carfare home and went into a cigar store to borrow a nickel. I offered the counterman my vest as security. Without a word he went to the back of the store. He returned holding a vest exactly like mine. “I been stuck with this one you gave me for six months now,” he said. “No soap.” It was the same old story. The other vest was Chico’s. He’d been there before me.
So anyway I gave the department stores a whirl. I was fired from Wanamaker’s when I was caught in a crap game. I worked for Stern’s for a few days, and also for Gimbel’s. Forgotten why Stern’s and Gimbel’s fired me, which is probably just as well.
Next in my steady rise to becoming a failure in business, I was a cash-boy at Siegel & Cooper’s, a store to which I was attracted by reason of its having an escalator. I had ridden only once on an escalator. I thought it would be fun to ride one up and down all day and get paid for it.
When I got the job, one of the first things they told me was that the escalators were for customers only. All employees had to use the back stairs.
Not discouraged, I struck up a friendship with the escalator guard, who seemed like a sympathetic fellow. He was. When
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