“From the hospital,” he answered.
“Ah,” I observed, “bad places—those—er—hospitals, Sandy. They breed a great deal of sickness. There are seventy-two in my district.”
“You think I’ve been in a saloon, drinking?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I answered, with a mental reservation favouring knowledge.
“Well, I haven’t been, anyway. You smell whisky on me. They gave it to me at the hospital so’s I could get down here. I ain’t discharged yet, but I was bound to come when I saw your name in the papers and knew I’d get the job if I could only see you. I’ve been here since six this morning. Will you give me a try at it?”
“Well, no, I can’t, McWhiffle,” I said, with a good deal more ease than I could have felt if I hadn’t smelt the liquor and heard that hospital story. “The fact is, I’ve taken a man on, and so the job’s gone.”
Sandy gazed at me with a bewildered, frightened look, but his answer was only a mumble about his being sure of a steady job this time, seeing how he knew me and all.
Mechanically I made a memorandum of the hospital at which he was allegedly a patient, but my mail was awaiting me, and he must have gone while I was intent upon its contents. Anyway, he’d disappeared when I looked up, but the odour of whisky in the room was strong enough to destroy any interest I might have felt in my late supper companion.
Whisky and “that tired feeling” are mainly responsible for the army of the “unemployed.” They talk about there not being enough work to go around! One good job’d last the whole shiftless lot a year. They don’t want work, they want help—permanent and increasing help.