When living is a daily struggle with the problems of what you shall eat and what you shall drink, and wherewithal you shall be clothed, you take no anxious thought for the morrow, quite content to let the morrow take thought for the things of itself, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Your heart will leap with hope at any brightening of your lot, and will sink in deep despair when the way grows dark. The road of your salvation is by the strait gate and the narrow way of courage and persistent effort and provident foresight, and whence are these to come to you whose courage is born of warmth and a square meal, and whose despair comes with returning hunger? A world all bright with hope can be had on the terms of heat and food, and the sense of these can be induced for a nickel in a “barrel-house.” When Clark and I awakened in the early morning, after our first night in the station, the dull gray dawn was dimming the gas, and in the lurid light we could see a writhing movement in the prostrate coiling mass of reeking humanity about us. We had lost the feeling of hunger, but a feverish thirst was burning to the roots of our tongues. We could scarcely move for the pain of sore and stiffened muscles, and I thought at first that my right leg was paralyzed from the night watchman’s kick. Only a few hours before, we had entered the station-house from the streets in eager willingness for any escape from their cold exposure, and now with intensified desire we longed for the outer air at any cost of hardship. But we were not free to go out at once. The officer on duty brusquely ordered us back among the men when we approached him with a request to be allowed to leave. We were greeted with a burst of mocking glee as we walked back to our places, and among the comments was a call to me: “What have you pinched, whiskers?” The reason for the delay was soon apparent, for in a few moments we were all marched down the main corridor and into the passage which opened nearest to the registrar’s desk. There we waited, closely huddled, the iron door locked upon us, while an examination was made as to whether any of the prisoners had been robbed. When all was reported right, the door was unlocked and we were allowed to file slowly out past the entrance of the kitchen. There stood the cook with an assistant, and he gave to each man as he passed a bowl of steaming coffee and a piece of bread. We drank the coffee at a gulp, and each man was eating bread with wolfish bites as he climbed the steps and walked out into the street. [Illustration: THE POLICE-STATION BREAKFAST.] Every succeeding breath in the outer air seemed to carry its cleansing coolness farther down into our lungs. It was like the feeling of cold water to a parched throat. The sky was overcast, but the storm had ceased, and the temperature had fallen to several degrees of frost, and this gave a freshness and vigor to the air which brightened the world for us amazingly.