"Nah, nah! vat for I do so mean a ting? You but your hand in my bocket ven you takes my dinners, my lagers, and my brandies, but I no do vat no shentlemens does. You can go, and ven you brings de full moneys for zwei weeks' bort I gives you receipt for him."
Haldane vouchsafed no reply, but hastened away, as a fly would escape from a spider's web. The episode, intensely disagreeable as it was, had the good effect of arousing him out of the paralysis of his deep despondency. Besides, he could not help congratulating himself that he had avoided another arrest and all the wretched experience which must have followed.
He concluded that there was no other resource for him that night save "No. 13," the lodging-house in the side street where "no questions were asked"; and, having stolen into another obscure restaurant, he obtained such a supper as could be had for twenty-five cents. He then sought his former miserable refuge, and, as he could not pay extra for a private room on this occasion—for he must keep a little money for his breakfast—there was nothing for him, therefore, but to obtain what rest he could in a large, stifling room, half filled with miserable waifs like himself. He managed to get a bed near a window, which he raised slightly, and fatigue soon brought oblivion.
CHAPTER XXII
A MAN WHO HATED HIMSELF
The light of the following day brought little hope or courage; but Haldane started out, after a meagre breakfast, to find some means of obtaining a dinner and a place to sleep. He was not as successful as usual, and noon had passed before he found anything to do.
As he was plodding wearily along through a suburb he heard some one behind a high board fence speaking so loudly and angrily that he stopped to listen, and was not a little surprised to find that the man was talking to himself. For a few moments there was a sound of a saw, and when it ceased, a harsh, querulous voice commenced again:
"A-a-h"—it would seem that the man thus given to soliloquy often began and finished his sentences with a vindictive and prolonged guttural sound like that here indicated—"Miserable hand at sawin' wood! Why don't you let some one saw it that knows how? Tryin' to save a half dollar; when you know it'll give you the rheumatiz, and cost ten in doctor bills! 'Nother thing; it's mean—mean as dirt. You know there's poor devils who need the work, and you're cheatin' 'em out of it. But it's just like yer! A-a-h!" and then the saw began again.
Haldane was inclined to believe that this irascible stranger was as providential as the croaking ravens that fed the prophet, and he promptly sought the gate and entered. An old man looked up in some surprise. He was short in stature and had the stoop of one who is bending under the weight of years and infirmities. His features were as withered and brown as a russet apple that had been kept long past its season, and his head was surmounted by a shock of white locks that bristled out in all directions, as if each particular hair was on bad terms with its neighbors. Curious seams and wrinkles gave the continuous impression that the old gentleman had just swallowed something very bitter, and was making a wry face over it. But Haldane was in no mood for the study of physiognomy and character, however interesting a subject he might stumble upon, and he said:
"I am looking for a little work, and with your permission I will saw that wood for whatever you are willing to pay."