was hungry _all_ the
time.

I knew that I was physically on the down-grade, but what could I do?
Nothing except to cut down my expenses. I was living on less than five
dollars a week, but even at that the end of my _stay_ in the city was
not far off. Hence I walked gingerly and read fiercely.

Bates' Hall was deliciously comfortable, and every day at nine o'clock I
was at the door eager to enter. I spent most of my day at a desk in the
big central reading room, but at night I haunted the Young Men's Union,
thus adding myself to a dubious collection of half-demented, ill-clothed
derelicts, who suffered the contempt of the attendants by reason of
their filling all the chairs and monopolizing all the newspaper racks.
We never conversed one with another and no one knew my name, but there
came to be a certain diplomatic understanding amongst us somewhat as
snakes, rabbits, hyenas, and turtles sometimes form "happy families."

There was one old ruffian who always sniffled and snuffled like a fat
hog as he read, monopolizing my favorite newspaper. Another member of
the circle perused the same page of the same book day after day,
laughing vacuously over its contents. Never by any mistake did he call
for a different book, and I never saw him turn a leaf. No doubt I was
counted as one of this group of irresponsibles.

All this hurt me. I saw no humor in it then, for I was even at this time
an intellectual aristocrat. I despised brainless folk. I hated these
loafers. I loathed the clerk at the desk who dismissed me with a
contemptuous smirk, and I resented the formal smile and impersonal
politeness of Mr. Baldwin, the President. Of course I understood that
the attendants knew nothing of my dreams and my ambitions, and that they
were treating me quite as well as my looks warranted, but I blamed them
just the same, furious at my own helplessness to demonstrate my claims
for higher honors.

During all this time the only woman I knew was my landlady, Mrs. Davis,
and her daughter Fay. Once a week I curtly said, "Here is your rent,
Mrs. Davis," and yet, several times she asked with concern, "How are you
feeling?--You don't look well. Why don't you board with me? I can feed
you quite as cheaply as you can board yourself."

It is probable that she read slow starvation in my face, but I haughtily
answered, "Thank you, I prefer to take my meals out." As a matter of
fact, I dreaded contact with the other boarders.

As a member of the