“Something like that.” “Show me the place.” As of old the Jew pointed out the way of salvation. The Gentile followed it and reached the dwelling-place of Faith, Hope, and Charity. “What do you want?” The questioner, evidently in charge of the place, was accoutred in stage laboring-man style. Maybe his paraphernalia was intended to put him on a level with wayfarers. He wore a slouch hat, a soft shirt, and no necktie. His clothes had the store freshness still. They looked rather presumptuous in that neat, well-stocked reading room. “I want a cheap bed.” “We do not sell beds.” “I was told you did.” “We give them away.” “All right.” “But you have to work.” “Very well.” “Do you want to leave early in the morning?” (The place was evidently a half-way house for tramps.) “Yes. I want to leave early in the morning.” “Then you will have to split kindling two hours to-night.” “Show me the kindling.” II SPLITTING KINDLING In the basement I throned myself on one block while I chopped kindling on another. Before me, piled to the first story, was a cellarful of wood, the record of my predecessors in toil. I gathered that the corporal’s guard of the unemployed who stayed at the mission that night, and had been there two or three days, had finished their day’s assignment of splitting. They completely surrounded me, questioned me with the greatest curiosity, and put me down as a terrific liar, for I answered every question with simple truth. As soon as the melodramatic workingman-boss went up stairs, one of them said, “Don’t work so fast. It’s only a matter of form this late at night. They want to see if you are willing, that’s all.” I chopped a little faster for this advice. Not that I was out of humor with the advisers,--though I should have been, for they were box-car tramps. One of them, having an evil and a witty eye, said, “If I was goin’ west like you, I’d start about ten o’clock to-night and be near Buffalo before morning.” Another, a mild nobody, professed himself a miller. He told what a wonderful trick it was to say, “Leddy, I’m too tired to work till I eat,” and after eating, to walk away. The next, a carriage painter of battered gentility, told endless stories of the sprees that had destroyed him. Another, a white frog with a bald head and gray mustache, quite won my heart. He said, “Wait till you get a nice warm bath after service. Then you’ll sleep good.” To my weary and addled brain the mission was like one of those beautiful resting-places in Pilgrim’s Progress. It became my religion, just to split kindling. I failed to apprehend what infinitesimal nobodies these fellows around me were. I should have disliked them more.