In two years Vandover had learned a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come to a question of food.

The brute in him might destroy all his finer qualities, but even the brute had to feed.

When work failed him at the beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency; the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.
On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with the bar.

He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these.

He paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese.