Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on the stove. She turned to him and answered, out of the steam and noise: “Git me ten dollars cash, und so you can pay me de rest next mont’.”

“I can’t do it⁠—I haven’t got it!” Jurgis protested. “I tell you I have only a dollar and a quarter.”

The woman turned to her work. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “Dot is all to try to sheat me. Vot is de reason a big man like you has got only a dollar und a quarter?”

“I’ve just been in jail,” Jurgis cried⁠—he was ready to get down upon his knees to the woman⁠—“and I had no money before, and my family has almost starved.”

“Vere is your friends, dot ought to help you?”

“They are all poor,” he answered. “They gave me this. I have done everything I can⁠—”

“Haven’t you got notting you can sell?”