“But you see,” returned Bill, “you can get a scoop of beer as big as a toy balloon and a free lunch like a Christmas dinner for the price of a loaf of bread.”
“All right, I’m with you,” said Jack who then continued, “Another week like the one gone by, and want will have me in a home for incurables.”
’Tis true I had forty-four cents due me for one day’s “session” in the “senate.” But what of that? It was not due until Saturday night at twelve o’clock. By that time hunger might drive a man to wreck, rob, murder or suicide, and there is no telling what a politician will do, even on a full stomach.
I then remembered hearing one “senator” telling another of a Catholic institution where he had received a hand-out for some work. I remembered the name of the place. I also remembered hearing another say he had earned fifty cents that day beating carpets,—a job he secured from the Associated Charities.
I first made my way to the Romanist institution. A Sister with a sweet face framed in folds of black and white met me at the door. She looked kind enough to give me the institution, but she didn’t. If she had, Cleveland would have had, from the way I was feeling just then, a Municipal Emergency Home about as quickly as one could change the sign. What she did give me was a job cleaning windows, for which I received a bowl of cold coffee and a piece of bread. As I waited I caught glimpses of delicious dishes of chicken, steaks, and other wholesome and dainty edibles. To the cook, a bright young Irish woman who had received orders to give me only what was before me, I said, as I looked at the bowl and bread, “Do these people believe in multiplying anything around here?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Working hours.”
“What do you do for something to eat when you get really hungry?”
“Well, you see, this is an institution what believes in fasting.” We both laughed and this brought forth a Mother Superior followed by a Mother Inferior, whose faces were sour enough to start a pickle factory. I felt that I had committed some unpardonable offense and abbreviated my call by taking a speedy departure.