I left her and started my search. If there was a job in the city I determined to get it. I went through block after block, store after store, hour after hour. I got mostly “Noes” but some answered pleasantly, taking my name and address. I kept going until one morning I stopped in front of a cigar store⁠—a dead-looking place, no customers. A man was reading a paper spread out on the counter. I went in and put my question to him. When he stood up I saw he was very tall and very thin. He looked sick. I had never seen an eye like his. It attracted me strangely. I could not have described it then, but I can now. It was a larcenous eye. He was very nice, asking many questions. How old was I? Did I ever work before? Where? I handed him Cy’s letter. He read it and asked me more questions. I have never answered so many questions since, except in a police station. At last he quit, and snapping himself together like a man coming out of a trance, he rapped his knuckles on the counter.