Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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All this so exactly met our needs. And there were warmth and shelter and companionship within the saloons, and having drunk at the bar and eaten at the free-lunch counter, we should be free to sit at ease about the fire. And how cheap it all was! For fifteen cents, Clark was saying, we could get three fair meals a day, and even ten cents would save us from the actual pain of hunger. There was no other chance that compared with this. The utmost that five cents would buy in the cheapest eating-houses was a cup of coffee and two small rolls. There were ten-cent meals to be had, but they were not the equals of a free lunch and a glass of beer. To get their equivalent in a restaurant you must spend fifteen cents at least.

My objections were wholly unintelligible to Clark. From these he would bring the argument back to the question of wise management, and there he had me. Presently he lost his temper, and told me that I was a “damn fool,” and that I might go “to a restaurant, or to hell,” as I chose, but that for his part he was going in for a free lunch and a glass of beer. But before we separated he was so far pacified that he agreed to meet me in the early evening in front of the shop where we had earned our money.