" she said, after a minute or two. "You stay here to
lunch--I'll have something up in the room."

She pressed a button, and a colored woman came to the door and took her
order. "It's nice to have somebody to wait on you," she observed, with a
laugh, as she lay back on the bed.

As the prison breakfast had not been liberal, Jurgis had a good
appetite, and they had a little feast together, talking meanwhile
of Elzbieta and the children and old times. Shortly before they were
through, there came another colored girl, with the message that the
"madame" wanted Marija--"Lithuanian Mary," as they called her here.

"That means you have to go," she said to Jurgis.

So he got up, and she gave him the new address of the family, a tenement
over in the Ghetto district. "You go there," she said. "They'll be glad
to see you."

But Jurgis stood hesitating.

"I--I don't like to," he said. "Honest, Marija, why don't you just give
me a little money and let me look for work first?"

"How do you need money?" was her reply. "All you want is something to
eat and a place to sleep, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said; "but then I don't like to go there after I left
them--and while I have nothing to do, and while you--you--"

"Go on!" said Marija, giving him a push. "What are you talking?--I won't
give you money," she added, as she followed him to the door, "because
you'll drink it up, and do yourself harm. Here's a quarter for you now,
and go along, and they'll be so glad to have you back, you won't have
time to feel ashamed. Good-by!"

So Jurgis went out, and walked down the street to think it over. He
decided that he would first try to get work, and so he put in the rest
of the day wandering here and there among factories and warehouses
without success. Then, when it was nearly dark, he concluded to go home,
and set out; but he came to a restaurant, and went in and spent his
quarter for a meal; and when he came out he changed his mind--the night
was pleasant, and he would sleep somewhere outside, and put in the
morrow hunting, and so have one more chance of a job. So he started away
again, when suddenly he chanced to look about him, and found that he
was walking down the same street and past the same hall where he had
listened to the political speech the night before. There was no red
fire and no band now, but there was a sign out, announcing a meeting,
and a stream of people pouring in through the entrance. In a flash
Jurgis had decided