The charming Jackie, or, as she was described in her id, the "Ms. Jacqueline Toplin Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving the hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without a home to go to or a dollar in her pocket. What was she to do?  The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her golden ring, her one piece of jewelry. They gave her twenty dollars for the ring . . . but what can you get for a twenty dollars? You can't buy for that sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair of bronze shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of being, as it were, undressed. She felt as though the very horses and dogs were staring and laughing at the plainness of her dress. And clothes were all she thought about: the question what she should eat and where she should sleep did not trouble her in the least.  "If only I could meet my ex boyfriends," she thought to herself, "I could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, I know. . ."  But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to meet them in the evening at the "Alumni," night bar but they wouldn't let her in at the "Alumni "in that shabby dress and with no decent skirt. What was she to do?  After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and thinking, Jackie made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: to go straight to the office of some ex-boyfriend and ask for money.  Jackie remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a Jew, who six months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once emptied a glass of beer at the party at the Alumni Club. She was awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel.  "He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him in the office," she thought, as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash all the lamps in there."  Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's room and demand twenty-five dollars. But as she touched the door, this plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Jackie began suddenly feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her way. She was bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, dressed in everyday clothes, feeling herself in the position of an ordinary person asking a favor, who might be refused admittance, she felt suddenly timid and humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened.  "Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring to pull the door. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, looking like a beggar or some working girl?"  And she pushed the door irresolutely.  She saw a pretty young girl: she was the receptionist  "Is the doctor available?" she asked.  She would have been glad now if the receptionist had said "No," but the latter, instead of answering helped her off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, and magnificent, but of all its splendors what caught her eye most was an immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure without a fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze shoes. And it seemed strange to Jackie that, now that she was humbly dressed and looked like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, and no trace of her usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in her own mind she no longer thought of herself as Jackie, but as the Jacqueline Kanavkin she used to be in the old days. . . .  "Walk in, please," said a dental assistant, showing her into the consulting-room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down."  Jackie sank into a soft arm-chair.  "I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite proper, for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would go. I don't like to ask before her. What does she want to stand there for?"  Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a tall, dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his eyes, his chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome and repellent! At the "Alumni" Club he had usually been rather tipsy, and would spend his money freely on women, and be very long-suffering and patient with their pranks (when Jackie, for instance, poured the beer over his head, he simply smiled and shook his finger at her): now he had a star of David on his neck, sleepy expression and looked solemn and frigid like a police captain, and he kept chewing something.  "What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Jackie.  Jackie looked at the serious assistant and the smug figure of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she turned red.  "What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably.  "I've got toothache," murmured Jackie.  "Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?"  Jackie remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth.  "At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said.  "Hm! . . . Open your mouth."  Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth.  "Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument.  "Yes," Jackie replied, untruthfully.  "Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to remember me. But that assistant! Why will she stand there?"  Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, and said:  "I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be worth keeping anyhow."  After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Jackie's lips and gums with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, and put something cold into her mouth. Jackie suddenly felt a sharp pain, cried out, and clutched at Finkel's hand.  "It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be frightened! That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . you must be brave. . ."  And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the tooth to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her mouth.  "You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and that will stop the bleeding," said Finkel.  He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, waiting to be left in peace.  "Good-day," she said, turning towards the door.  "Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting tone.  "Oh, yes!" Jackie remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the twenty dollars that had been given her for her ring.  When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with shame than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed of. She was unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable jacket. She walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding on her life, her ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had endured, and would have to endure to-morrow, and next week, and all her life, up to the very day of her death.  "Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!"  Next day, however, she was back at the "Alumni," and dancing there. She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, and bronze shoes. And a young businessman from Washington took her out to supper.

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