As the prison breakfast had not been liberal, Jurgis had a good appetite, and they had a little feast together, talking meanwhile of Elzbieta and the children and old times. Shortly before they were through, there came another colored girl, with the message that the "madame" wanted Marija—"Lithuanian Mary," as they called her here.
"That means you have to go," she said to Jurgis.
So he got up, and she gave him the new address of the family, a tenement over in the Ghetto district. "You go there," she said. They'll be glad to see you."
But Jurgis stood hesitating.
"I—I don't like to," he said. "Honest, Marija, why don't you just give me a little money and let me look for work first?"
"How do you need money?" was her reply. "All you want is something to eat and a place to sleep, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said; "but then I don't like to go there after I left—them and while I have nothing to do, and while you—you—"
"Go on!" said Marija, giving him a push. "What are you talking?—I won't give you money," she added, as she followed him to the door, "because you'll drink it up, and do yourself harm. Here's a quarter for you now, and go along, and they'll be so glad to have you back, you won't have time to feel ashamed. Good-by!"
So Jurgis went out, and walked down the street to think it over. He decided that he would first try to get work, and so he put in the rest of the day wandering here and there among factories and warehouses without success. Then, when it was nearly dark, he concluded to go home, and set out; but he came to a restaurant, and went in and spent his quarter for a meal; and when he came out he changed his mind—the night was pleasant, and he would sleep somewhere outside, and put in the morrow hunting, and so have one more chance of a job. So he started away again, when suddenly he chanced to look about him, and found that he was walking down the same street and past the same hall where he had listened to the political speech
