as Lemuel shrank a little from the bottle, and then submitted. "It's
a regular night-cap."

The tramps recognised the humour of the explanation by a laugh,
intended to be respectful to the establishment in its control, which
spread along their line, and the black boy grinned.

"There ain't anything mean about the Wayfarer's Hotel," said the
mate, and they all laughed again, a little louder.

Each man, having dried himself from his bath, was given a coarse
linen night-gown; sometimes it was not quite whole, but it was
always clean; and then he gathered up his shoes and stockings and
went out.

"Hold on a minute," said the mate to Lemuel, when they left the
bath-room. "You ought to see the kitchen," and in his night-gown,
with his shoes in his hand, he led Lemuel to the open door which
that delicious smell of broth came from. A vast copper-topped boiler
was bubbling within, and trying to get its lid off. The odour made
Lemuel sick with hunger.

"Refrigerator in the next room," the mate lectured on. "Best beef-
chucks in the market; fish for Fridays--we don't make any man go
against his religion, in _this_ house; 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 hard-tack; and bread, like sponge,--bounce you up if you was to
jump on it,--baked by the women at the Chardon Street Home--oh, I
tell you we do things in style here."