I then decided to try for the first time the Young Men's Christian Association, which poses as an institution assisting those needing help, and which is supported by benevolently inclined contributors and its income enhanced in the same way. When I applied at the Omaha Y. M. C. A. for a free bed and bath, a most affable, well-dressed, neat-looking clerk behind the desk assured me nothing would give him greater pleasure than to accommodate me, but their beds and rooms were fixed up "pretty nicely," in fact, too nicely to be given away. Then I asked for a bath, and he assured me that was a member's privilege only. I then sought the Salvation Army. My answer there was to the effect that if they gave fellows like me free beds they would be overrun every night. Next I went to the Union Gospel Mission on Douglas Street. The door to the lodging house upstairs was locked. Downstairs a gospel meeting was being held. I waited until the meeting was concluded. The dormitory was not open, there were bright lights there, and people were going to their beds. I approached the attendant, who was closing the door, and asked him if he would give me a bed. He kept right on closing the door in my face, meanwhile saying that he wished that he had a free bed himself, that he slept in the street when he hadn't "the price." I then applied to members of the Volunteers of America. They could do nothing for me as they had no lodging house, but thought I might find shelter at the City Mission. I went there and found the place locked and dark. It was a reception about as cordial as that which I received once at Genoa where I went to visit the birthplace of Columbus. After standing on tiptoe reaching up and ringing the bell of that curious house for about five minutes a barber stepped out of the house next door and said in a mixture of Italian and broken English: "Eh, Miestro Colombo, eh not-a-to-home. No ring-a-de bell so damn-a loud. Miestro Colombo eh dead, all a-right dead,--yes-a-four hundred years!" Later with two or three other "down and outs," I lay down on the grass in Jefferson Park. Very soon a policeman came along and drove us out. "How many times have I got to tell you fellows to get out of here? Now, _get_ out of here!" A short time afterward I met another policeman and asked him where I could get a free bed, telling him I was broke. He looked at me rather savagely and said, "You can't get nothing like that in this town." Then he added, "You might go to the city jail, but it is chock full now that the car strike is on."