"Look at me!" he said in a voice that startled her into consciousness; "you've got to trust me! I'm going to take you home——"
"My home?" she cried feebly.
"Yes. Where is your home?"
The girl made no answer, but commenced to weep. At length, she said:
"If I had a home, do you suppose I would have attempted what you have just prevented me from doing? Home? Let me go, please let me go!" and again she fell to sobbing.
"Then I'll take you to my own home," he said; and added to himself: "I'm good for one more day there at any rate."
"No, no, no!" she cried, trying to break away from him. "I want my father, just father—Oh, father...."
"Don't fight against me. I'm going to help you to find your home, your father. Come, trust me!"
And the girl, too weak to resist him any longer, allowed herself to be led away by him.
In a cheap hotel on this same East Side a man sat among other men of his own type, drinking with apparent gusto a huge glass of beer. Between sips he smoked a pipe. His clothes were soiled, stained with tobacco, they reeked with the odour of the place. He had just finished telling a story to an English sailor, who slapped his thigh and howled in glee.