The Minister's Charge

wall for them to sit on. They were all silent and quelled-looking, except a young fellow whom Lemuel sat down beside, and who, ascertaining that he was a new-comer, seem

high, narrow, three-sided tabling in the middle of the ro

of wood is that they let you exercise that much free in the morning, before they give you your breakfast: it's the doctor's orders. This used to be a school-house, but it's in better business now. They got a kitchen under here, that beats the Parker House; you'll smell it pretty soon. No whacking on the knuckles here any

ge. He wore a blue flannel shirt, with loose trousers belted round his waist, and he crushed a soft felt hat between hi

heir vicinity to the manager's door, and

y entered the presence of the manager, who sat at a desk, Lem

ed the manager, as if going

m, and stood aside to wait for Lemuel, who made the same a

manager; "I'll take care of him! This way," he said to Lemuel. "The reason why I said I'd never been here before," he explained on the way down, "was because you got to say something, when he asks you. Most

said L

or's orders. He thinks it's the best thi

rywhere, and a savoury odour of onion-flavoure

s breakfast. You got a bath and a night's rest as well as the

" said Lem

give you all the bread and water y

g to-night," said Lemuel, shr

ing in the long run," said the othe

tion; others were of a dull or cunning middle-age, two or three were as young as Lemuel and his partner, and looked as if they might be poor fellows who h

friend found the numbers on two of them corresponding to those given L

ngs, and you got to hang on to them, yourself. Forty's your number, and

thers, who chatted in tones of subdued cheerfulness under the pleasant excitement of unlimited hot and cold water. As each n

elf. I don't suppose you need it, but some the pardners here couldn't sleep without it," he cont

h, intended to be respectful to the establishment in its cont

ayfarer's Hotel," said the mate, and t

nen night-gown; sometimes it was not quite whole, but it was always

night-gown, with his shoes in his hand, he led Lemuel to the open door which that delicious smell of broth came from.

e; pots of butter as big as a cheese,-none of your oleomargarine,-the real thing, every time; potatoes and onions and carrots laying around on the floor; barrels of

r in the corner looked up sharpl

sh you good night, Jim

y, as if to an old acquaintance, who must no

cut the air with it in playful menace as the man dropped his eyes again to his paper. "They're all just so

s as they came up with their shoes in their hands. He instructed them that the numbers corresponded to the cots they were to occupy, as well as the hooks wher

e right and left of the corridor, and presented long phalanxes of cot

ooms," said Lemuel's

he attendant, looking at their check

and about the last they reach in the morning. You see, they got to take us as we come, when they call us, an

himself out in the quilt that covered them. "Cool off a little, fi

ing the attendant with a group of t

again, and went on: "Well, you do see all kinds of folks here, that's a fact. Sorry there ain't more in to-night, so 's to give you a specimen. You ought to be here in the winter. Well, it ain't so lonesome now, in summer, as it used to be. Sometimes I used to have nearly the whole place to myself, summer nights, before they got to passin' these laws against tramps in the country, and lockin' 'em up when they ketched 'em. That drives 'em into

-house, when I've been gettin' my order for a bed, stiffen up so 't the captain himself thought he was sober; and then I've followed him round here, wobblin' and corkscrewin' all over the sidewalk; and then I've seen him stiffen up in the office again, and go through his bath like a little man, and get

kill a drunk. One night there was a drunk got loose, here, and he run downstairs into the wood-yard, and he got

Lemuel. "Are there sn

ud that the attendant called

the morning," said the mate; and

harp lookout, so that there would not really be much danger. He was very drowsy from his bath, in spite