I promised to be there and departed. On my way home I passed the police station and pictured in my mind the inferno inside⁠—the big negro swinging his ladle above the snarling, cursing horde of half-starved prisoners in the stinking bowels of the city prison.

At Madam Singleton’s my boyish mind had not grasped the greater tragedy. Fresh air, light, meat, drink, and music⁠—that was all I saw there then. But the tired women were prisoners more hopeless than the savage men fighting for food in the jail. The bodily comforts they had at Madam Singleton’s but served to tighten their shackles. Life-timers of society, they were slowly sinking without a straw to grasp at.

The time flew till Sunday. I looked over my clothes and wished I had my gray suit and gray hat. I had saved my money but had not enough yet to buy them.