Last of all
he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
socks superfluous.
It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
upon the interest of his bonds--that is to say, upon five dollars and
seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.
When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
tickets at each meal.
But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had been forced to
fall back upon the free-lunch system.
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