They had two beds only, the
third being a mattress they slept upon in turns, a week at a time. A
good deal of their irregular "feeding" consisted of oatmeal, potatoes,
and sometimes eggs, all of which they cooked on a strange utensil they
had contrived to fix into the gas jet. Occasionally, when dinner failed
them altogether, they swallowed a little raw rice and drank hot water
from the bathroom on the top of it, and then made a wild race for bed so
as to get to sleep while the sensation of false repletion was still
there. For sleep and hunger are slight acquaintances as they well knew.
Fortunately all New York houses are supplied with hot air, and they only
had to open a grating in the wall to get a plentiful, if not a wholesome
amount of heat.
Though loneliness in a big city is a real punishment, as they had
severally learnt to their cost, their experiences, three in a small room
for several months, had revealed to them horrors of quite another kind,
and their nerves had suffered according to the temperament of each. But,
on this particular evening, as Blake sat scribbling by the only window
that was not cracked, the Dane and the Frenchman, his companions in
adversity, were in wonderful luck.
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