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Human beings only make trouble. Men cut out of cardboard do not make trouble. Yesser. Excuse me, I mean: yes, sir.
     

6
    Three days are not always three days. Some three days are very long, some very short. But no matter how short three days really are, the three days for which I had a meal ticket were over before I had had time to realize how short three days can be.
    I had made up my mind that, regardless of how hungry I might feel, I would not go again to my consul. I thought it silly to listen to his memorized sermon once more. He would not provide me with a ship. So what was the use of giving him the pleasure of having a man sit in front of him listening with attention to his speech? There would be no change in his way of explaining how helpless he was and how sorry he felt for being unable to do something for me, except to give me another meal ticket but this time with a sour look. No, before I would go again to see him, I would prefer to look for itching pockets.
    I had another reason for not wanting to see him. His eyes, when he had asked me if I were hungry, had a look almost like my mother’s used to have when she said: “Like that pie, Gerry? Have another cut.”
    This time he might tell me what my mother would never have said: “Sorry, but it is the last time. There are too many asking for help. You understand.” No.
    Oh, you forgotten goldfish, with the folks all off for a long vacation! Was I hungry? Bet your life I was. And tired. Migud, So tired from sleeping in gateways, in corners, in nooks. Always chased and hunted by policemen, striking matches or flashing their search-lights at me.
    A civilized country means a country that sends to jail a man found asleep in the streets without evening clothes on. You have to have a house, or at least a room to sleep in. How you get it is of no concern to the police.
    No ship in port short of hands. And if there was a ship that needed a man, fifty sailors, natives of the port, and all with excellent papers, came to apply for the job. A hundred jobless to one job. And none for a foreigner. Taking on a man whose papers were not in good shape, who was not in the country legally, was punishable with a big fine. It was punishable even with a prison sentence. It was the law that protected the jobless of their own country. If you don’t belong to a country in these times, you had better jump into the sea. No other way out.
    Each protects his own kind. Internationalism is just a word that sounds fine from a soap-box. Nobody ever means it; not the Bolshevists either. Stay with your own tribe. Or with your clan. The chiefs need you. If for some reason or other you cannot belong, you are an outcast. You cannot even stay with the dogs of the tribe. Any papers to identify you? No? Out you go and stay out; hell, we’ve got enough of your kind, get out of here. What’s that? Don’t let any more workers in. Keep wages up. What do I care if the workers of the other clan cannot even buy dry bread. That’s why we call ourselves Christians because we love our neighbors dearly; so let them go to hell or heaven, wherever they want to, so long as they don’t try to eat their daily bread with us. We haven’t got enough for ourselves; that’s why we have to burn it to raise prices. When you are hungry, and chased when you want to sleep, you easily fall for the wrong religion.
    So it happened.
    A dame and a gent were standing in front of a shop-window. Said the lady: “Look, Fibby, how lovely these kerchiefs are!” Fibby, apparently knowing nothing about kerchiefs and thinking about lunch, mumbled something that could be taken for an affirmation or for something concerning the stock market.
    The lady again: “No, bless me, I’ve never seen anything so cute and so lovely. Must be old Dutch peasant art.”
    “Yep. Right you are,” Fibby said, entirely uninterested. “Genuine. Genuine old Dutch. But, in old English, it’s probably copyright nineteen hundred and