What can any one do who has no money and no prospect of getting any, and who has reached the pitch of acute hunger? He has pa.s.sed the stage of wanting work, because, if work were offered to him, he would not be in a fit state to do it--he would be too weak. Too weak to work! What a phenomenon! Yes--to all those who have never missed a day's meals.

To others--no! They can understand--and understand only too well--the really poor who have long ceased to eat, cannot work--they are beyond it.

When Curtis and Kelson staggered down the stairs of the house where Hamar lodged, they realized that unless something turned up pretty soon, it would be too late--they would be past the stage of caring for anything--too feeble to do anything but lie on the ground and pray that death would come quickly.

"Home?" Kelson inquired, as they emerged on to the pavement.

"h.e.l.l!" Curtis answered, and Kelson, taking it for granted that the terms were synonymous, at once headed for their garret.

"Don't walk so confoundedly fast," Curtis gasped; "this pain in my side is like a hundred st.i.tches rolled in one. It fairly doubles me up. Ease down a bit, for heaven's sake!"

Kelson obeyed, and presently came to a dead halt before a dingy-looking restaurant. Both men leaned against the window and gazed wolfishly at the food. A warm, foetid rush of air from under the grating at their feet tickled their nostrils and mocked their hunger with a mockery past endurance. Arranged on the window-sill was a miscellaneous collection of very smeary plates and dishes, containing an even more miscellaneous collection of food. A half-consumed ham, with more than a mere suspicion of dirt on its yellowish-white fat; some concoction in a bowl that might have been brawn made from some peculiarly liverish pig, or--from one of the many homeless mongrels that roam the streets at night; a pile of noxious-looking mussels, side by side with a glistening ma.s.s of particularly yellow whelks; a round of what purported to be beef--very fat and very underdone; some black shiny sausages, and a score or so of luridly red polonies. A similar a.s.sortment was to be seen on the counter behind which lolled an anaemic girl, in a dirty cotton blouse, and a much soiled sky-blue skirt.

A month ago such an exhibition would have been an offence in the fastidious eyes of Messrs. Kelson and Curtis; but now it was otherwise. Their stomachs would have refused nothing short of garbage.

"Matt!" Curtis's hands had left off clutching at his belt and were now hanging by his side; the fingers twitching to and fro in a manner that fascinated Kelson. "Matt! Is there any logic in our starving?"

"None, excepting that we haven't a cent between us!" Kelson rejoined.

"I know that," Curtis went on slowly, "but--I mean--why should we starve when all this grub is within two inches of us! It's unreasonable--it's intolerable."

"Doesn't the smell of it satisfy you?" Kelson replied, attempting to force a smile, and failing dismally.

"D--n the smell!" Curtis cried. "It's the ham I want. I'd give my soul for a good munch at it. And just look at that tea, too! Don't you see it steaming over there? What wouldn't I give for just one cup! Ten minutes more and it may be too late. The pain will come on again--and it will be very doubtful if I shall ever get home. I'm close on the stage when one begins to digest one's own stomach. Curse it! I won't starve any longer! Matt! she's in there all by herself!"

"So I've been thinking," Kelson murmured, glancing uneasily up and down the street. "Still she's a girl, Ed!"

"That's just it!" Curtis whispered; "it is because she is a girl. If she were a man, in our present condition we shouldn't stand a chance.

Come! It's this or dying in the gutters. It's our one and only chance.

Let's go in--have a feed--take what we can and make a bolt for it. If she tries to stop us we can settle her right enough."

"Without being too rough! There's no need to be too rough with her, Ed."

"I shouldn't stick at much!" Curtis answered. "Occasions like these don't admit of chivalry. Come along! It's the ham I'm after."

Curtis shuffled forward as he spoke, and the next moment Kelson and he were standing in front of the counter.

The girl eyed Curtis very dubiously and it is more than likely would have refused to serve him had he been alone. But her expression changed on looking at Kelson. Kelson was one of those individuals who seldom fail to meet with the approval of women--there was a something in him they liked. Probably neither he nor they could have defined that something; but there it was, and it came in extremely handy now.

"What do you want?" she inquired shortly.

"Ham! Give me some of that ham over there, miss, and a cup of tea!

Bread too!" Curtis cried eagerly. "Do you know what it is to have a twist on, miss? I have one on now--so please give us a full twenty-five cents' worth."

Kelson said nothing, but his eyes glistened, and the girl wondered as she pa.s.sed him the polonies.

Both men ate as they had never eaten before, and as they would not have eaten now had they paid any attention to the advice of hunger experts.

However, they survived, and when they could eat no more they leaned back in their chairs to enjoy the sensation of returning--albeit, slowly returning--strength.

Curtis was the first to make a move. "Matt," he murmured, "we've about sat our sit. We'd better be off. You go and say a few nice words to the girl and make pretence of paying. I'll secure the ham--there's still a good bit left--and anything else I can grab. The moment I do this, throw these chairs on the ground so that the girl will fall over them when she makes a dash for me, which she is certain to do. We will then head straight away for 216th Street. Don't look so scared or she will think there is something up. She has never taken her eyes off you since we sat down!"

"She's rather a nice girl!" Kelson said. "I wish I didn't look quite such a blackguard--and--I wish I hadn't to be quite such a blackguard.

Who'll pay for all this? Will she?"

"We shan't, anyway," Curtis sneered. "Come, this is no time to be sentimental. It was a question of life and death with us, and we've only done what any one else would do in our circ.u.mstances. The girl won't lose much! Are you ready?"

Curtis rose, and Kelson, who was accustomed to obey him, reluctantly followed suit. A look almost suggestive of fear came into the girl's eyes as they encountered those of Curtis, and she shot a swift glance at an inner door. Then Kelson spoke, and as she turned her head towards him, her lips parted in a sort of smile.

"Nice night, miss, isn't it?" Kelson said, halting half-way between the counter and the chairs. "Aren't you a bit lonely here all by yourself?"

"Sometimes," the girl laughed. "But my mother's in the room there,"

and she nodded in the direction of the closed door. "And one can't be dull when she's about. She's that there active as a rule, there's no keeping her quiet--only just at present"--here she glanced apprehensively at Curtis--"she's recovering from ague. Gets it every year about this time. Your friend seems to have kind of taken a fancy to our ham!"

Kelson looked at Curtis and his heart thumped. Curtis's right hand was getting ready to spring at the ham, whilst his left was creeping stealthily along the counter in the direction of a loaf of bread.

Kelson slowly realized that an acute crisis in both their lives was at hand, and that it depended on him how it would end. He had never thought it possible to feel as mean as he felt now. Besides, his natural sympathy with women tempted him to stand by the girl and prevent Curtis from robbing her. He was still deliberating, when he saw two long dark objects, with lightning rapidity, swoop down on the plates and dishes. There was a loud clatter, and the next moment the whole place seemed alive with movement.

A voice which in his confusion he did not recognize at once shouted--and seemingly from far away--"Quick, you fool, quick! Fling down the chairs and grab those sausages!" Whilst from close beside him--almost, he fancied, in his ears--came a wild shriek of "Mother!

Mother! We are being robbed!"

Had the girl appealed to him to help her it is more than likely that Kelson, who was even yet undecided what course to adopt, would have offered her his aid; but the instant she acted on the defensive his mind was made up; a mad spirit of self-preservation swept over him--and dashing the chairs on the ground at her feet, he seized the sausages, and flew after Curtis.

Ten minutes later, Curtis and Kelson, their arms full of spoil, clambered up the staircase of their lodgings, and reeled into their room.

"Look!" Curtis gasped, sinking into the chair. "Look and see if we are followed!"

"There's no one about!" Kelson whispered, peering cautiously out of the window. "Not a soul! I don't believe after that first rush across Rutter Street, any one noticed us. To leave off running was far the best thing to do. You are a perfect genius, Ed. I wonder if this sort of thing--er--thieving--is dormant in most of us? I say, old fellow, I wish I hadn't looked at that book of Hamar's. Do you know, directly I took it up, an extraordinary sensation of cunning came over me; and I declare, when I put it down, I felt it would take very little to make me a criminal!"

"We're both criminals now--in the eyes of the law--anyway!" Curtis said. "And now we've got so far there's no alternative but to go on!

It's easier for a hundred camels to pa.s.s through the eye of a needle than for a clerk to get work, that's a fact. The markets are hopelessly overstocked--no one wants us! No one helps us! No one even thinks about us. The labouring man gets pity and cents galore--we get nothing!--nothing but rotten pay whilst we work, and when we're out of work, dosshouses or kerbstones. D--n clerks, I say. D--n everything!

There's no justice in creation--there's no justice in anything--and the only people who prate of it are those who have never known what it is to want. Say, when shall we take the next lot?"

"When we're obliged, not before!" Kelson said. "Or rather, you do as you like--and I'll do the same."

"Well, I'm not going to commit suicide anyhow," Curtis sneered. "We haven't the money to buy poison--and I've no mind to drown myself or cut my throat--they're too painful! If we don't go on doing what we've done to-night, what are we going to do?"

"Trust to luck," Kelson sighed.

"All right--you trust to luck--but I won't trust any more in Providence, and that's a fact," Curtis retorted. "We've been done enough. Now I'm for doing other people. Good-night."

He tumbled into the makeshift bed as he spoke; and in a few minutes, worn out after the unwonted exertions of the evening, both men were fast asleep.

They were at breakfast next morning--real _dejeuner a la carte_--sausages, bread, water--and they were doing ample justice to it, when some one rapped at the door. For a few seconds there was silence. Their hearts stood still. Had they been followed, after all?

Was it the police? Some one spoke--and they breathed again. It was Hamar.

"This looks like starving, I must say!" Hamar exclaimed, as he sniffed his way into the room and sat on the bed. "Why, from what you fellows told me last night I thought you were cleared out. And here you are, stuffing like roosters! You look a bit surprised to see me, but you'll look more surprised, I reckon, when I tell you what brings me here.

You remember that book?"

Kelson and Curtis nodded.

"Well," Hamar went on. "I read it after you left last night, and I've come to the conclusion that there's something in it that may be of use to us."