As she opened the door she saw an old man bending over a pot of potatoes on a shoemaker’s bench. A group of children in all degrees of rags surrounded him, greedily snatching at the potatoes he handed out.
Sophie paused for an instant, but her absorption in her own problem was too great to halt the question: “Is there a room to let?”
“Hanneh Breineh, in the back, has a room.” The old man was so preoccupied filling the hungry hands that he did not even look up.
Sophie groped her way to the rear hall. A gaunt-faced woman answered her inquiry with loquacious enthusiasm. “A grand room for the money. I’ll let it down to you only for three dollars a month. In the whole block is no bigger bargain. I should live so.”
As she talked, the woman led her through the dark hall into an airshaft room. A narrow window looked out into the bottom of a chimney-like pit, where lay the accumulated refuse from a score of crowded kitchens.
“Oi weh!” gasped Sophie, throwing open the sash. “No air and no light. Outside shines the sun and here it’s so dark.”
“It ain’t so dark. It’s only a little shady. Let me only turn up the gas for you and you’ll quick see everything like with sunshine.”
The claw-fingered flame revealed a rusty, iron cot, an inverted potato barrel that served for a table, and two soap-boxes for chairs.
Sophie felt of the cot. It sagged and flopped under her touch. “The bed has only three feet!” she exclaimed in dismay.