"I can only stay for two minutes," she said, speaking rapidly and in a low voice. "This is supposed to be my Sunday off, but one of the maids is sick, so instead of a day I get an hour and a half. Say, it's certainly a swell house. The family is just a man and his mother. Just them two in a house big enough for a town--and think of the way we rub ribs down here! They've got carloads of silver, all of it solid; and the old lady has simply got barrels of jewelry. They're going to have a big blow-out on Christmas, so none of the servants get a holiday then. But almost all of them are going to get New Year's Eve and New Year's Day out. The house will be almost empty New Year's Eve. That's when we'll clean it up." "You seem to have no doubt that I shall join you," David said dryly. "None at all!" she answered promptly. "Well, I shall certainly not!" "You may think you'll not," she returned, undisturbed. "But you will. Anybody but a fool would have come to his senses long ago. You've found you can't get a job. You've got to live. It's steal or starve. Of course you're going to be in." "I shall not!" David returned doggedly. The days of the second half of the month moved slowly by. David continued walking the streets, occasionally daring to ask for work. His money was all gone, and everything was in the pawnshop except his overcoat, from which he hardly dared part at this season. His clothes were now so worn and shapeless as of themselves to insure the refusal of any place but that of a labourer. A labourer's place he possibly could have found--for a labourer's character is not questioned, since usually there is opportunity for him to steal no more than the value of a pick and shovel, and the wages left behind would more than cover such a loss. But for a labourer's work David had not a labourer's strength. He was forced down ... down; finally to those low services by which the dregs of the city's population keep a decrepit life within themselves. The odd jobs about saloons which are usually done for beer-payment he performed under the inspiration of the free-lunch counter. He peeled potatoes in Bowery restaurants where dinners are fifteen cents, his work to pay for a meal; and when the dinner, which he had seen cooked in a filthy kitchen and served in half-washed dishes, was put before him, his stomach so revolted that he often turned from the untasted food and hurried into the street. He was at the bottom of the abyss. Light, hope, were far above--the walls were smooth and high--his climbing strength was gone. He could not last much longer. He wondered, darkly, fearfully, what would be the end. Yet he had not given up; there was still bitterness, rebellion, in him, and still an automatic, staggering courage.