"Alone in London," I said to myself. "Lost in New York. Adrift in West Norrington. Plenty of money to buy, and nobody to sell. Everybody going about their business with full stomachs, happy, contented,--all with homes, and firesides, and ice chests, and things hanging to cellar rafters, hams and such like, and I a wanderer and hungry, an outcast, a tramp." Then I thought some citizen might take me in. She was a rather amiable-looking old lady, with a kind, motherly face. "Madam!" This time I took off my hat. Ah, the common law of hunger brings you down and humbles your pride. "Do you live here, madam?" "Why, yes, sir," edging to the sidewalk. "Madam, I am a stranger here, and very hungry. It's baking-day at Nichols. Do you know where I can get anything to eat?" "Well, no, I can't rightly say," still eyeing me suspiciously. "Hungry, be ye? Well, that's too bad, and Nichols baking." I corroborated all these statements, standing bare-headed, a wild idea running through my head that her heart would soften and she would take me home and set me down in a big chintz-covered rocking chair, near the geraniums in the windows, and have her daughter--a nice, fresh, rosy-cheeked girl in an apron--go out into the buttery and bring in white cheese, and big slices of bread, and some milk, and preserves, and a---- But the picture was never completed. "Well," she said slowly, "if Nichols is baking, I guess ye'll hev to wait till suppertime." Then like a sail to a drowning man there rose before me the sign down the hill near the station, "Five meals for a dollar." I had the money. I had the appetite. I would eat them all at once, and _now_. In five minutes I was abreast of the extra-dry oyster-shells and the pool balls. Then I pushed open the door. Inside there was a long room, bare of everything but a wooden counter, upon which stood a glass case filled with cigars; behind this was a row of shelves with jars of candy, and level with the lower shelf my eye caught a slouch hat. The hat covered the head of the proprietor. He was sitting on a stool, sorting out chewing-gum. "Can I get something to eat?" The hat rose until it stood six feet in the air, surmounting a round, good-natured face, ending in a chin whisker. "Cert. What'll yer hev?" Here at last was peace and comfort and food and things! I could hardly restrain myself. "Anything. Steak, fried potatoes--what have you got?" "Waal, I dunno. 'Tain't time yit for supper, but we kin fix ye somehow. Lemme see." Then he pushed back a curtain that screened one half of the room, disclosing three square tables with white cloths and casters, and disappeared through a rear door. "We got a steak," he said, dividing the curtains again, "but the potatoes is out." "Any celery?" "No. Guess can git ye some 'cross to ther grocery. Won't take a minit." "All right. Could you"--and I lowered my voice--"could you get me a bottle of beer?" "Yes--if you got a doctor's prescription."