IV

the youth

IF YOUR janitor's children take to pen and ink,and draw wrist- watches on their wrists, faces on their finger-nails, rings around their fingers, and circles around theirknuckles, the chances are that by the time they are fifteenthey will find their way to the waterfront, there to acquire atattooed snake on the arm or a butterfly on the thigh. Thevenerable tattoo establishments of America now depend forcustom on the callow landlubbing adolescents rather than onthe sailors. See them come to the shops, young East Siders, ingroups of three or four,-there is your herd- motive in tattoo-ing. See their puny, undersized figures,-there is your infe-riority- motive, the desire to attain manliness and strengththrough the pain of the tattoo- wound, to identify themselveswith some worshipped adult.

A former sailor obtained a job in the shipping room of afilm company in New York. Soon he was running things notonly in that particular shipping room but in the back- officesof many other companies of the film center. He was masterly-he knew how to fix things and people- he was power per-sonified. On his right arm was the tattooed design of anIndian maiden. As shipping work is shirt- sleeve work, the

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