The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

workingman would come in, feeling cheerful after his day’s work was over, and it would trouble him to have to take his glass with such a sight under his nose; and so he would call out: “Hello, Bud, what’s the matter? You look as if you’d been up against it!” And then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, “Come have a glass, and maybe that’ll brace you up.” And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the “gab,” they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city, or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have taken in a dollar. All of this may seem diabolical, but the saloon-keeper was in nowise to blame for it. He had either to do it or be driven out of business, just as now-a-days every manufacturer has to