“Um!... Well, I calc’late what we want is somethin’ betwixt and between. Somethin’ where we kin stay for about a dollar apiece.”
That seemed like an awful lot to spend just for sleeping. Why, in the morning our two dollars would be gone and we wouldn’t have anything to show for it. It seems like when you spend money you ought to git something. I nudged Mark and says to him that it was cheaper to stay awake, and we could use our dollars to-morrow to buy something we could touch. But he says we got to sleep to be fresh for business.
“I’ll tell you,” says the man behind the counter. “I’ve got a little room without a bath, and if you can sleep two in a bed, you can have it for two-fifty.”
“All r-right,” says Mark. “Kin we have breakfast here?”
“If you’ve got the money to pay for it.”
“Um!... But there’s places where we can git g-g-good grub cheaper ’n you sell it, hain’t there?”
“Why, yes! There’s a good serve-self lunch up the street where you can get a lot to eat for fifty cents. Say, what are you kids up to? Running away from home?”
“Not that you can n-notice,” says Mark. “We’re here on b-business. We come to see the p-president of that railroad across the street.”
“Oh,” says the man, and he laughed right out. “You come to see him, did you? Was he expecting you?”
“No.”