brown-skin man. When I asked him if he
could give me accommodations, he wanted to know how long I would stay.
I told him perhaps two days, not more than three. In reply he said:
"Oh, dat's all right den," at the same time leading the way up a pair
of creaky stairs. I followed him and the porter to a room, the door of
which the proprietor opened while continuing, it seemed, his remark,
"Oh, dat's all right den," by adding: "You kin sleep in dat cot in de
corner der. Fifty cents, please." The porter interrupted by saying:
"You needn't collect from him now, he's got a trunk." This seemed to
satisfy the man, and he went down, leaving me and my porter friend in
the room. I glanced around the apartment and saw that it contained
a double bed and two cots, two wash-stands, three chairs, and a
time-worn bureau, with a looking-glass that would have made Adonis
appear hideous. I looked at the cot in which I was to sleep and
suspected, not without good reasons, that I should not be the first to
use the sheets and pillow-case since they had last come from the wash.
When I thought of the clean, tidy, comfortable surroundings in which
I had been reared, a wave of homesickness swept over me that made me
feel faint. Had it not been for the presence of my companion, and that
I knew this much of his history--that he was not yet quite twenty,
just three years older than myself, and that he had been fighting his
own way in the world, earning his own living and providing for his own
education since he was fourteen--I should not have been able to stop
the tears that were welling up in my eyes.

I asked him why it was that the proprietor of the house seemed
unwilling to accommodate me for more than a couple of days. He
informed me that the man ran a lodging house especially for Pullman
porters, and, as their stays in town were not longer than one or two
nights, it would interfere with his arrangements to have anyone
stay longer. He went on to say: "You see this room is fixed up to
accommodate four men at a time. Well, by keeping a sort of table of
trips, in and out, of the men, and working them like checkers, he can
accommodate fifteen or sixteen in each week and generally avoid having
an empty bed. You happen to catch a bed that would have been empty
for a couple of nights." I asked him where he was going to sleep. He
answered: "I sleep in that other cot tonight; tomorrow night I go
out." He went on to tell me that the man who kept the house