The big fellow stopped, before answering, to stuff a pipe with tobacco, punching it in with a fat thumb.
"They'll give me a job—mean one—three dollars a day—nine to five—under the roof in a big loft, tenth story—with a lot of women hirelings. Regular sweatshop—educational sweatshop."
Sommers took up some letters from the table and opened them.
"Well, I've got to scare up some patients to live on, even to make three dollars a day."
"You!" Dresser exclaimed, eying the letters with naive envy. "You are pals with the fat-fed capitalists. They will see that you get something easy, and one of these days you will marry one of their daughters. Then you will join the bank accounts, and good-by."
He continued to rail, half jestingly, half in earnest, at McNamara and Hills,—where he had obtained work, thanks to a letter which Sommers had procured for him,—at his companion's relations with the well-to-do, which he exaggerated offensively, and at the well-to-do themselves.
"It was lucky for you," Sommers remarked good-humoredly, "that I was thick enough with the bloodsuckers to get you that letter from Hitchcock. One of us will have to stand in with the 'swilling, fat-fed capitalist.'"
"Are those Hitchcocks rich?" Dresser asked, his eye resting wistfully on a square note that the young doctor had laid aside.
"I suppose so," Sommers answered. "Shall we go and have some beer?"
Dresser's blue eyes still followed the little pile of letters—eyes hot with desires and regrets. A lust burned in them, as his companion could feel instinctively, a lust to taste luxury. Under its domination Dresser was not unlike the patient in No. 8.