m
diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He
was in the same plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and
misrepresent his product. If he does not, some one else will; and the
saloon-keeper, unless he is also an alderman, is apt to be in debt to
the big brewers, and on the verge of being sold out.

The market for "sitters" was glutted that afternoon, however, and there
was no place for Jurgis. In all he had to spend six nickels in keeping a
shelter over him that frightful day, and then it was just dark, and
the station houses would not open until midnight! At the last place,
however, there was a bartender who knew him and liked him, and let him
doze at one of the tables until the boss came back; and also, as he
was going out, the man gave him a tip--on the next block there was a
religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing, and hundreds
of hoboes would go there for the shelter and warmth.

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a sign hung out, saying that the door
would open at seven-thirty; then he walked, or half ran, a block, and
hid awhile in a doorway and then ran again, and so on until the hour.
At the end he was all but frozen, and fought his way in with the rest of
the throng (at the risk of having his arm broken again), and got close
to the big stove.

By eight o'clock the place was so crowded that the speakers ought to
have been flattered; the aisles were filled halfway up, and at the door
men were packed tight enough to walk upon. There were three elderly
gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young lady who played the
piano in front. First they sang a hymn, and then one of the three, a
tall, smooth-shaven man, very thin, and wearing black spectacles, began
an address. Jurgis heard smatterings of it, for the reason that terror
kept him awake--he knew that he snored abominably, and to have been put
out just then would have been like a sentence of death to him.

The evangelist was preaching "sin and redemption," the infinite grace of
God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much in earnest, and
he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his soul filled with
hatred. What did he know about sin and suffering--with his smooth, black
coat and his neatly starched collar, his body warm, and his belly full,
and money in his pocket--and lecturing men who were struggling for their
lives, men at the death grapple with the demon powers of hunger and
cold!--