But first he took some precautions for the sake of friendship. Fearing that all might not go well with Bojus if Mamie were the first to be stirring and happened to look into her cellar, he went to the top of the stairs and locked the door there upon the inside. Then he came down again and once more proved his moderation by placing only one flask of Mamie’s distillation in his pocket. He could have taken much more if he wished, but he sometimes knew when to say no. In fact, he now said it aloud and praised himself a little. “No! No, sir!” he said to some applicant within him. “I know what’s good fer you and what ain’t. If you take any more you’re liable to go make a hog of yourself again. Why, jest look how you felt when you woke up this morning! I’m the man that knows and I’m perty smart, too, if you ever happen to notice! You take and let well enough alone.”
He gave a last glance at Bojus, a glance that lingered with some interest upon the peculiar diamond ring; but he decided not to carry it away with him, because Bojus might be overwhelmingly suspicious later. “No, sir,” he said. “You come along now and let well enough alone. We want to git out and see what’s goin’ on all over town!”
The inward pleader consented, he placed a box against the wall, mounted it and showed a fine persistence in overcoming what appeared to be impossibilities as he contrived to wriggle himself through a window narrower than he was. Then, emerging worm-like upon a dirty brick path beside the cottage, he arose brightly and went forth from that quarter of the city.
It suited his new mood to associate himself now with all that was most brilliant and prosperous; and so, at a briskish saunter he walked those streets where stood fine houses in brave lawns. It was now an hour and more after noon, the air was lively yet temperate in the sunshine, and the wealth he saw in calm display about him invigorated him. Shining cars passed by, proud ladies at ease within them; rich little children played about neat nursemaids as they strolled the cement pavements; haughty young men strode along, flashing their walking-sticks; noble big dogs with sparkling collars galloped over the bright grass under tall trees; and with all of this, Tuttle now felt himself congenial, and even intimate. Moreover, he had the conviction that some charming and dramatic adventure was about to befall him; it seemed to be just ahead.
The precise nature of this adventure remained indefinite in his imagination for a time, but gradually the thought of eating (abhorrent to him earlier in the day) again became pleasant, and he sketched some little scenes climaxing in banquets. “One these here millionaires could do it easy as not,” he said, speaking only in fancy and not vocally. “One of ’em might jest as well as not look out his big window, see me, and come down his walk and say, ‘Step right in, Mr. Tuttle. We got quite a dinner-party to-day, but they’s always room fer you, Mr. Tuttle. Now what’d you like to have to eat? Liver and chili and baked beans and ham and eggs and a couple of ice-cold muskmelons? We can open three or four cans o’ sardines fer you, too, if you’d like to have ’em. You only got to say the word, Mr. Tuttle.’ ”
He began to regret Bojus’s diamond ring a little; perhaps he could have traded it for a can of sardines at a negro restaurant he knew; but the regret was a slight one; he worried himself little about obtaining food, for people will always give it. However, he did not ask for it among the millionaires, whose servants are sometimes cold-hearted; but turned into an unpretentious cross-street and walked a little more slowly, estimating the houses. He had not gone far when he began to smell his dinner.
The odour came from the open front door of a neat white frame house in a yard of fair size; and here, near the steps of the small veranda, a man of sixty and his wife were discussing the progress of a row of tulips about to bloom. Their clothes new-looking, decorous and worn with a little unfamiliarity, told everybody that this man and his wife had been to church; that they dined at two o’clock on Sunday, owned their house, owned a burial lot in the cemetery, paid their bills, and had something comfortable in a safety deposit box. Tuttle immediately walked into the yard, took off his hat and addressed the wife.
“Lady,” he said, in a voice hoarser from too much singing than he would have liked to make it, “Lady, I be’n out o’ work fer some time back. I took sick, too, and I be’n in the hospital. What I reely wish to ast fer is work, but the state of unemployment in this city is awful bad. I don’t ast fer no money; all I want is a chance to work.”
“On Sunday?” she said reprovingly. “Of course there isn’t any work on Sunday.”
Tuttle stepped a little closer to her—a mistake—and looked appealing. “Then how’m I a-goin’ to git no nourishment?” he asked. “If you can’t give me no work, I ain’t eat nothin’ at all since day before yestiddy and I’d be truly thankful if you felt you could spare me a little nourishment.”