Chapter II

Jurgis talked lightly about work, because he was young.
They told him stories about the breaking down of men,
there in the stockyards of Chicago, and of what had hap~
pened to them afterwards -- stories to make your flesh
creep, but Jurgis would only laugh. He had only been
there four months, and he was young, and a giant besides.
There was too much health in him. He could not even
imagine how it would feel to be beaten. "That is well
enough for men like you," he would say, _"silpnas,_ puny
fellows -- but my back is broad."

Jurgis was like a boy, a boy from the country. He was
the sort of man the bosses like to get hold of, the sort they
make it a grievance they cannot get hold of. When he
was told to go to a certain place, he would go there on the
run. When he had nothing to do for the moment, he
would stand round fidgeting, dancing, with the overflow
of energy that was in him. If he were working in a line
of men, the line always moved too slowly for him, and you
could pick him out by his impatience and restlessness.
That was why he had been picked out on one important
occasion; for Jurgis had stood outside of Brown and Com~
pany's "Central Time-Station" not more than half an
hour, the second day of his arrival in Chicago, before he
had been beckoned by one of the bosses. Of this he was
very proud, and it made him more disposed than ever to
laugh at the pessimists. In vain would they all tell him
that there were men in that crowd from which he had
been chosen who had stood there a month -- yes, many
months -- and not been chosen yet. "Yes," he would
say, "but what sort of men? Broken-down tramps
and good-for-nothings, fellows who have spent all their
money drinking, and want to get more for it. Do you

[[23]]

p022 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p023w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p024

v?