“No,” he said, “it goes on your bill. But you won’t find it hard to get along without money here,” he said, “there isn’t much that you can buy, outside of clothes and a lecture in the village once in a while. You’ll soon become accustomed to getting along without cash, all right.”
When Saturday morning arrived, it was a distinct surprise to hear Thropper moving in the room first, for he usually had droned while I prepared for the day’s work. I opened my eyes. The alarm clock on the table told me that it was half-past five. I watched my roommate as he donned his working clothes and put on a slouch hat.
“An Englishman would call you a ‘navvy,’” I smiled.
“I should think an American would call me a tramp!” he replied. “But you ought to see some of the Bulgarians I have to work with!” He spread out his hands expressively to indicate that whatever the Bulgarians did look like, he had not the rhetoric available at that moment with which to describe them.
There came a knock on the door and in response to Thropper’s cheery “Come in!” there appeared another “tramp” with his lunch box; a tall, high-cheek-boned Southerner, named Tripp, who drawled,
“Best be gettin’ deown, Thropper!”
So with a good-bye, Thropper left the room, turning to tell me that if I found time, I might clean up the room—in his absence.
“Be sure and shake the Turkish rugs,” he laughed, pointing to the patches of well-worn carpet that were used for rugs. “When you shake them you’ll find them very Turkish; they smoke!”
By the time the early lunch for the workers had ended, there were seven “tramps” who went to the glass factory with Thropper. Included among them were two students, whom, judged by their excellent dress and their social graces on the campus, I had thought were none other than the sons of wealthy parents.
When the Bible verses had been given at the tables and after the last slice of fried potato had been scraped out of the dish, the students hurried from the room and disposed themselves for work.