[The People of the Abyss by Jack London]@TWC D-Link bookThe People of the Abyss CHAPTER XX--COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES 16/18
In the morning out you go.
You cannot put your trunk in it, or come and go when you like, or lock the door behind you, or anything of the sort.
In fact, there is no door at all, only a doorway.
If you care to remain a guest in this poor man's hotel, you must put up with all this, and with prison regulations which impress upon you constantly that you are nobody, with little soul of your own and less to say about it. Now I contend that the least a man who does his day's work should have is a room to himself, where he can lock the door and be safe in his possessions; where he can sit down and read by a window or look out; where he can come and go whenever he wishes; where he can accumulate a few personal belongings other than those he carries about with him on his back and in his pockets; where he can hang up pictures of his mother, sister, sweet-heart, ballet dancers, or bulldogs, as his heart listeth--in short, one place of his own on the earth of which he can say: "This is mine, my castle; the world stops at the threshold; here am I lord and master." He will be a better citizen, this man; and he will do a better day's work. I stood on one floor of the poor man's hotel and listened.
I went from bed to bed and looked at the sleepers.
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