“I don’t use a wash-rag,” I said.
“Hurry,” croaked the Frog. _And he let the water out of the tub._ He
handed me the towel the scalawag had used. I had not, as a matter of
fact, had a bath, and I was quite foot-sore.
“I do not want that towel,” I said.
“You’re awful fancy, aren’t you?” sneered the Frog.
Wherever I was damp, I rubbed myself dry with my bare hands, being
skilled in the matter, meanwhile reflecting that there is nothing worse
than a Pharisee except a creature like this. I wondered if it was
too late to rouse a mob among the better element of the town, neither
saints nor sinners, but just plain malefactors of great wealth, and
have this person lynched. There were probably multi-millionnaires in
this town giving ten-dollar bills to this mission, who were imagining
they were giving a free bath to somebody.
I wanted to appeal to some man with manicured hands who had grown
decently rich robbing the widow and the orphan and who now had the
leisure to surround himself with the appurtenances of civility and the
manners of a Chesterfield.
“I am through with the poor but honest submerged tenth. Rich worldlings
for mine,” I muttered.
“Put these on,” squeaked the Frog. His manner said, “See how good
we are to you.” He held out the treasure of the establishment, a
night-garment retained for fastidious new-arrivals, newly-bathed. Of
course, no one else was supposed to bathe.
Was the garment he held out a slivered shirt? Nay, nay. It was a sort
of pajama combination. Hundreds of men had found shelter, taken a
luxurious bath, and put them on. They were companions in crime of
the towel and the wash-rag. Let us suppose that three hundred and
sixty-five men wore them a year. In ten years there would have been
about three thousand six hundred and fifty bathed men in them. That did
not account for their appearance.
“What makes them so dirty?” I asked.
No answer.
“Can’t I wear my underclothes to bed instead of these?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Sulphur.”
“What do you mean by sulphur?”
“Your clothes are up stairs being fumigated.”
“Can’t I get my socks to-night? I always wash them before I go to bed.”
“No. It’s against the law of the state. And you would dirty up these
bowls. I have just scrubbed them out.”
“I will wash them out afterward.”
“I haven’t time to wait. I must get up at four-thirty.”
“But why fumigate my clean underwear, and give me dirty pajamas?”
The Frog was getting flabbergasted. “I tell you it’s the law of New
Jersey. You are getting awful fancy. If I had had my way, you would
never have been let in here.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” I said to
myself, and put on the pajamas.
This insanitary director showed me my bed. It was in a long low room
with all the windows closed, where half a score were asleep. The sheets
had never, never, never been washed. Why was it that in a mission so
shiny in its reading room, and so devout in its chapel, so melodramatic
with its clean workman-boss, in the daytime, these things were so?
The lights went out. I kicked off the pajamas and slept. I awoke at
midnight and reflected on all these matters. I quoted another scripture
to myself: “I was naked, and ye clothed me.”
V