ss to help him in such distress, to make
the fight the least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, he
would be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was to discover in good
time.

In the beginning he could not think of anything except getting out of
the awful cold. He went into one of the saloons he had been wont to
frequent and bought a drink, and then stood by the fire shivering and
waiting to be ordered out. According to an unwritten law, the buying a
drink included the privilege of loafing for just so long; then one
had to buy another drink or move on. That Jurgis was an old customer
entitled him to a somewhat longer stop; but then he had been away two
weeks, and was evidently "on the bum." He might plead and tell his "hard
luck story," but that would not help him much; a saloon-keeper who was
to be moved by such means would soon have his place jammed to the doors
with "hoboes" on a day like this.

So Jurgis went out into another place, and paid another nickel. He
was so hungry this time that he could not resist the hot beef stew, an
indulgence which cut short his stay by a considerable time. When he was
again told to move on, he made his way to a "tough" place in the
"Levee" district, where now and then he had gone with a certain rat-eyed
Bohemian workingman of his acquaintance, seeking a woman. It was
Jurgis's vain hope that here the proprietor would let him remain as a
"sitter." In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers
would often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who came in covered
with snow or soaked with rain to sit by the fire and look miserable to
attract custom. A workingman would come in, feeling cheerful after his
day's work was over, and it would trouble him to have to take his glass
with such a sight under his nose; and so he would call out: "Hello, Bub,
what's the matter? You look as if you'd been up against it!" And then
the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would
say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so
they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently
wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and
if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had
lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down
at a table and spend an hour or two in talk--and before they got through
the saloon-keeper would have taken in a dollar. All of this might see