id the
thing which every provincial does: he went to a policeman and inquired
of him where he might find a respectable boarding-house. The policeman
did not know, but informed him that there were plenty of hotels farther
up. With something like disgust, Brent wondered if all the hotels were
like those he saw at the station, where the guests had to go through
the bar-room to reach their chambers. He shuddered at it; so strong is
the influence of habit. But he did not wish to go to a hotel: so,
carrying his two valises, he trudged on, though the hot sun of the
mid-afternoon beat mercilessly down upon him. He kept looking into the
faces of people who passed him, in the hope that he might see in one
encouragement to ask for the information he so much wanted; but one and
all they hurried by without even so much as a glance at the dusty
traveller. Had one of them looked at him, he would merely have said,
mentally, "Some country bumpkin come in to see the sights of town and be
buncoed."

There is no loneliness like the loneliness of the unknown man in a
crowd. A feeling of desolation took hold upon Brent, so he turned down a
side-street in order to be more out of the main line of business. It was
a fairly respectable quarter; children were playing about the pavements
and in the gutters, while others with pails and pitchers were going to
and from the corner saloon, where their vessels were filled with foaming
beer. Brent wondered at the cruelty of parents who thus put their
children in the way of temptation, and looked to see if the little ones
were not bowed with shame; but they all strode stolidly on, with what he
deemed an unaccountable indifference to their own degradation. He passed
one place where the people were drinking in the front yard, and saw a
mother holding a glass of beer to her little one's lips. He could now
understand the attitude of the children, but the fact, nevertheless,
surprised and sickened him.

Finally, the sign "Boarding Here" caught his eye. He went into the yard
and knocked at the door. A plump German girl opened it, and, to his
question as to accommodation, replied that she would see her mistress.
He was ushered into a little parlour that boasted some shabby attempts
at finery, and was soon joined by a woman whom he took to be the "lady
of the house."

Yes, Mrs. Jones took boarders. Would he want room and board? Terms five
dollars per week. Had he work in the city? No? Well, from gentlemen who