"gold" employee is as completely furnished as any reasonable man
could demand, his iron cot with springs and mattress
unimpeachable--but just there the maternal generosity of the
government ceases. He must furnish his own sheets and pillow--MUST
because placards on the wall sternly warn him not to sleep on the
bare mattress; and the New York Sunday edition that had served me
thus far I had carelessly left behind at Corozal police station.
To be sure there were sheets for sale in Empire, at the
Commissary--where money has the purchasing-power of cobble-stones,
and coupon-books come only to those who have worked a day or more
on the Zone. Then the Jamaican janitor, drifting in to potter
about the room, evidently guessed the cause of my perplexity, for
he turned to point to the bed of the absent "Mitch" and gurgled:

"Jes' you make lub to dat man what got dat bed. Him got plenty ob
sheets." Which proved a wise suggestion.

Empire hotel sat a bit down the hill. There the "gold" ranks were
again subdivided. The coatless ate and sweltered inside the great
dining-room; the formal sat in haughty state in what was virtually
a second-story veranda overlooking the railroad yards and a part
of the town, where were tables of four, electric fans, and "Ben"
to serve with butler formality. I found it worth while to climb
the hill for my coat thrice a day. As yet I was jangling down a
Panamanian dollar at each appearance, but the day was not far
distant when I should receive the "recruits" hotel-book and soon
grow as accustomed as the rest to having a coupon snatched from it
by the yellow negro at the door. Uncle Sam's boarding scale on the
Zone is widely varied. Three meals cost the non-employee $1.50,
the "gold" employee $.90, the white European laborer $.40, and