In "The Glass of Milk," a youth who has been expelled from a ship as a stowaway finds himself walking around the port looking for work to earn money to buy some food. He has not eaten in three days, yet he refuses a handout from a sailor and then watches hungrily as a "gaudy tramp" accepts the food and eats it. He finds some work unloading a vessel. After the first day he asks for his pay, but the foreman tells him that he will be paid at the close of the whole job. The foreman then offers him some money as a loan but the lad again refuses.

Soon his hunger gets the better of him and he decides to go to a cafe and eat, with the intention of not paying for the food. He does not care what they might do to...