He was going to stay in Altruria till he
died, if they would let him, and he guessed they would, if what he had
heard about them was true. He just wanted, he said, while we were about
it, to have a few of his mates tell their experience, not so much on
board the _Little Sally, but on shore, and since they could remember;
and one after another did get up and tell their miserable stories. They
were like the stories you sometimes read in your paper over your coffee,
or that you can hear any time you go into the congested districts in New
York; but I assure you, my dear, they seemed to me perfectly incredible
here, though I had known hundreds of such stories at home. As I realized
their facts I forgot where I was; I felt that I was back again in that
horror, where it sometimes seemed to me I had no right to be fed or
clothed or warm or clean in the midst of the hunger and cold and
nakedness and dirt, and where I could only reconcile myself to my comfort
because I knew my discomfort would not help others' misery.
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