“New York,” said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored face and a shiny Jewish nose. “I'm in the clothing business there. I oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage. I'm consumptive.” He spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.
“They'll fix ye up, don't you fear,” said the tall youth. “They'll make you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother won't know ye, when you get home, rookie.... But you're in luck.”
“Why?”
“Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an' all the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.”
“What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?” asked the tall youth.
“I don't smoke.”
“Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get in right with 'em.”
“Don't do no good,” said Fuselli.... “It's juss luck. But keep neat-like and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye, show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to git on in this army.”
“Ye're goddam right,” said the tall youth. “Don't let 'em ride yer.... What's yer name, rookie?”
“Eisenstein.”
“This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli.... Goin' to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?”
“No, I'm trying to find a skirt.” The little man leered wanly. “Glad to have got ackwainted.”
“Goddam kike!” said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street, planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust.
“Kikes ain't so bad,” said Fuselli, “I got a good friend who's a kike.”
They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.
“I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl to go off to the war,” said
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