ve cents of this
went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.

When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
tickets at each meal.

But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had been forced to
fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.

On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
himself throughout the week.

It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
determination was irrevocable--he would eat no breakfast the next
morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
to self