At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience filed out into the snow, muttering curses up on the few traitors who had got repentance and gone upon the platform. It was yet an hour before the station-house would open, and Jurgis had no overcoat⁠—and was weak from a long illness. During that hour he nearly perished. He was obliged to run hard to keep his blood moving at all⁠—and then he came back to the station-house and found a crowd blocking the street before the door! This was in the month of January, 1904, when the country was on the verge of “hard times,” and the newspapers were reporting the shutting down of factories every day⁠—it was estimated that a million and a half of men were thrown out of work before the spring. So all the hiding-places of the city were crowded, and before that station-house door men fought and tore each other like savage beasts. When at last the place was jammed and they shut the doors, half the crowd was still outside; and Jurgis, with his helpless arm, was among them. There was no choice then but to go to a lodging-house and spend another dime. It really broke his heart to do this, at half-past twelve o’clock, after he had wasted the night at the meeting and on the street.