Hildegarde was busy cleaning, with a grubbing-hoe, the basement in which she afterward conducted her tea-room. She invited me to dine with her. On learning that this, my first meal, was to be cooked in her basement, I accepted with the proviso that I pay for all materials.
After my winter with Alice and observing the economies of the hat-trimmer, Hildegarde’s manner of buying seemed nothing short of reckless extravagance. At one of the most expensive stalls in Jefferson Market she bought lettuce, tomatoes, and hothouse cucumbers at a price that would have fed Alice and me for days. At yet another high-priced place she selected and I paid for a large loaf of bread, which she declared to be the only kind she ever ate. Next came salad dressing, unsalted butter, sugar, fresh cream cheese.
Sure that this would be all, I carefully folded and stored in the bottom of my bag the remains of my five-dollar bill. I did not know Hildegarde. Declaring that the grade of foodstuffs carried in the Jefferson Market was a disgrace to the city, she led me to a meat-shop on a cross street.
Tenderloin steak! My hair almost stood on end. Three pounds! What on earth was she going to do with it? Then I had a happy thought. Such a cheerful solution. The next day being Sunday she planned for me to take all three meals with her. Though I cannot be sure that while paying for that steak I wore a smiling countenance, I am sure that I was not so glum as I most certainly would have been had I known what was to become of it.
Hildegarde ate it—two pounds and three-quarters of underdone steak, at one sitting. When I said that I only wished a small piece, she gave me the bone. And she ate that red dripping meat without bread, potatoes, or vegetable of any sort—two pounds and three-quarters of underdone steak.
It was not an appetizing sight. When she had swallowed the last mouthful she explained that, being a meat-eater, she only ate other things for the sake of filling up. When she finished that process the provisions which I had believed would last us both through Sunday had all disappeared—the last of the quarter of a pound of sweet butter together with the last of the pound of granulated sugar on the last slice of bread.
Our sightseeing began on a narrow street both crooked and short. Keeping pace with Hildegarde’s eager steps I entered at one end and walking rapidly halted near the centre of the block.
“Sniff,” panted Hildegarde. “Sniff.”
“Why, it’s a stench,” I replied indignantly, and instead of sniffing I held my nose. “What on earth is it?”
“Cesspools,” she assured me. “Those houses are awfully old. There is not a drain in this street. Typhoid in the summer, croup and pneumonia in the winter—people die like flies. Jack Harland says we may have a few cases of Asiatic cholera here this fall if the hot weather will only continue long enough.”