s
and he got to the hotel early one morning and started to make up six
gallons of home-brew down in our kitchen. Only, o' course, "some
dirty guy had to go an' squeal" on 'em and Kelly 'most lost his job,
did Kelly.

I had a very nice Italian friend--second cook, he called himself--who
used to come over to the compartment of Monsieur Le Bon Chef and talk
over the partition to me every afternoon from four to half past. He
also was not in the least fresh, but just talked and talked about many
things. His first name in Italian was "Eusebio," but he found it more
convenient in our land to go under the name of "Vwictor." He came from
a village of fifty inhabitants not far from Turin, almost on the Swiss
border, where they had snow nine months in the year. Why had he
journeyed to America? "Oh, I donno. Italians in my home town have too
little money and too many children."

Victor was an intelligent talker. I asked him many questions about the
labor problem generally. When he first came to this country seven
years ago he started work in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria. In
those days pay for the sort of general unskilled work he did was
fifteen to eighteen dollars a month. Every other day hours were from 6
A.M. to 8.30 P.M.; in between days they got off from 2 to 5 in the
afternoon. Now, in the very same job, a man works eight hours a day
and gets eighteen dollars a week. Victor at present drew twenty-two
dollars a week, plus every chef's allotment of two dollars and forty
cents a week "beer money." (It used to be four bottles of beer a day
at ten cents a bottle. Now that beer was a doubtful bestowal, the
hotels issued weekly "beer money." You could still buy beer at ten
cents a bottle, only practically everyone preferred the cash.)

But Victor thought he was as well off seven years ago on eighteen
dollars a month as he would be to-day on eighteen dollars a week.
Then, it seems, he had a nice room with one other man for four dollars
a month, including laundry. Now he rooms alone, it is true, but he
pays five dollars a week for a room he claims is little, if any,
better than the old one, and a dollar a week extra for laundry. Then
he paid two to three dollars for a pair of shoes, now ten or twelve,
and they wear out as fast as the two-dollar shoes of seven years
before. Now fifty dollars for a suit no better than the one he used to
get for fifteen dollars. Thus spoke Victor.

Besides, Victor could save nothing now, for h