Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-10-23
STRANDED In A CITY.
A BOSTON MANS TRYING ORDEAL
WITH BUT SIS IN CHICAGO.

| strange city, far from his base of supplies,
with only some four or five dollars in his
pocket? A man, that is, who isn't a
tramp or one accustomed to dollarlessness.
and who is too much of gentleman to OBJ
| tain unlimited board and lodging while
putting on every appearance of being
| flush" Not long ago friend of the Lis
tener, who was making a rapid journey
J toward the west, expected remittance at
Chicago. He had not been keeping track
of his outgoes, and was astonished on ar
| irving at that city one evening, and look
| ing into his pocketbook to get some change
to fee sleeping car porter, to find that he
had exactly five dollar bill left.
He did not know the address of soul in
Chicago to whom he could go to borrow
money The first thing he did was to find
that there was no remittance for him from
Boston, and the next to send a telegram,
collect" to Slimson at the office at home
to wire him some funds. Then he went to
European hotel, where his room would
cost him dollar day, and waited. He
had only a light travelling bag, and the
hotel people made him pay nights lodg-
| ing in advance. He ate his supper in a
very confident way for forty-fve cents;
breakfast next morning, another forty five,
and lunched on plate of soup for fifteen.
l ut uluH
| Boston! Dinner time came and he couldn't
really get off for less than thirty. five cents.
That, with the dollar for the room, left
his assets 500. All the evening he haunt
ed the telegraph Office, but not a word
came from Boston. Meantime he had
walked over pretty nearly the whole of
Chicago, and had sat on the lake front in
| Lincoln park for hours, wondering what
| gave the lake such melancholy. lone
some. hard up look.
| NO ANSWER FROM BOSTON.
He had gazed into the faces of thousands
of people on Clark and State streets, and
had derived some extremely doleful be-
guilement from picking out the men to
| whom he might possibly venture to say
presently, mister, would you give me the
price of a loaf of bread, sir?" Then he
went back ID the telegraph office for the
tenth time and gave his name and address
| again for an answer. Look here!' said
the man at the window. your message
to Boston has come back. Man can't be
| found. Fifty cents, please"
| He turned sick as he paid the half dollar,
| and feverishly counted the remaining 81. 10
in his pocketbook. Then he hastily got off
| a telegram to another man at the Office in
| Boston, Slimson was out of town, of
course, and some laundering person had
refused his telegram, perditiou take him.
Well, he could go another twenty-four
hours, he supposed, somehow.
Next morning he went to a cheap dairy
restaurant and breakfasted on hominy and
milk for fifteen cents, his thrifty and sus-
picious hotel keeper having meantime ex-
acted another dollar for the room. Bal
ance on hand, ninety-five cents. Not
enough to pay for the room another nigh /
He went on his melancholy round through
the streets and parks and back to the tele-
graph office. Everybody looked simply
tragical. Should he go without his dinner
and supper, and try to induce the hotel
keeper to take ninety-five cents for dol
lar2
| DOWN TO THE LAST DOLLAR.
He was in mortal terror lest the telegraph
Office should come down upon him for fift3
cents more for another undelivered tell
gram. Twelve O'Clock came. and he was
never so hungry in his life. Nervously
weak he was, too. He wondered if he
couldn't earn dollar by contributing an
article to some newspaper on How 1t
Really Feels to Be Hungry" Gods II
ever again he refused a man quarter on
the street who said he was hungry, he
hoped that he might be punished with
slow starvation. Such an appetite makes
a man desperate.
He rushed into first class restaurant
with an intention to order a sirloin steak,
but weakened when he got in, and put
himself off with plate of soup-twenty-
five cents When he got out on the street
he fingered the half dollar and the two
dimes he had in his pocket and reflected
that he had better go hungry than try to
sleep that night on a bench in the park.
However, he reflected that he was Just
seventy cents better off than man who
hadn't copper. This gave him compar-
alive sense OF wealth, and he entered the
telegraph office very cheerfully.
Not a world What on earth was he
going to do in that great city, with no
money and no friends9 Everybody in Bos-
ton had gone back on him-that was plair
He even began to wonder whether, if he
ever got back to Boston, he wouldn't find
his friends ard his WORK gone, and himself
tramp, reduced to beggary or thievery
However, he could get seven ten cent meals
here and sleep in the park, and then
He stood in the door of the telegraph Of
fee, looking duly down the street.
HELP IN TINE OF NEED.
He became conscious, in a vague way, of
4 familiar face drawing nearer to him
through the crowd. Could it possibly be
Slimson-the very man he had first tele-
himself, in these horrible two days, to the
thought of b. ,Dg a miserable unfortunate,
scorned by everybody, that he was almost
on the point of letting Slimson go by with
out calling him. But he braced up and
rushed out at him.
'Slimsonl Slimsonr"
Perkins! Why, what in the world"-
E They went to big restaurant together.
The recording angel never so much rs
made a memorandum of the fact that Per
; kins wickedly ordered porterhouse steak
with mushrooms, and rice birds to go with
it. and quar- bottle of champagne
This is a truthful account of a real thing.
But it would be good realism" too, not
TO have the remittance arrive, nor Slimson
heave in sight, nor any sort of relief come.
1t is bad enough to be without dollar
simply because one is out of reach of his
fbase of supplies. But suppose he has nc
longer any base of supplies Suppose the
last dollar is gone, and there is no place
from which any more dollars are to come.
There have nctIlalIy bee,n mon in his rra-