In the "Pasol" restaurant featuring Dixie cuisine at No. 1 Silver Star Street in Tingen City, Nimrod led the weak middle-aged vagrant to sit at a table near the street.
Unlike the restaurants Nimrod had visited in Pritz Harbor and Backlund, the tables and chairs in "Pasol" restaurant were quite greasy and old. However, due to its location at the entrance to the square with heavy foot traffic, the business seemed quite good.
A large glass of milk, a plate of Dixie-style grilled fish, a pork chop sprinkled with lemon juice and basil juice, plus a salmon toast—after pushing this lunch totaling 28 pence to the middle-aged vagrant across from him, Nimrod smiled and said:
"Don't be polite, eat slowly. If it's not enough, we can order more."
The middle-aged man wiped his eyes, looked at the food before him, and said somewhat chokingly:
"Thank... thank you. You're truly a kind gentleman. I really don't know how to thank you."
Nimrod sighed silently and smiled: "Eat."
"I haven't had such good food for half a year. Even in the workhouse, the food is just barely enough to fill the stomach, but I can't always get a spot in the workhouse."
After a while, the middle-aged vagrant finally slowly swallowed the last bite of pork chop. He looked at the empty plate before him and sighed.
He then drank some sweet, still-warm hot milk and sighed as he asked:
"Kind gentleman, what story would you like to hear? As long as I know it, I will definitely tell you."
Looking at the middle-aged vagrant whose face showed satisfaction from being full, Nimrod opened his mouth but didn't know how to answer. After thinking, he said:
"Tell me your own story. I can see that you were once a respectable gentleman too. I'm curious about what kind of misfortune caused you to become a vagrant."
The pale-faced middle-aged vagrant with a beard that seemed not to have been shaved for a long time heard this, opened his mouth, and said with numbness mixed with some reminiscence and sadness:
"My name is George, George Johnston. I was once a grain merchant with my own wife and children. I was engaged in purchasing grain from Feysac and selling it in Loen.
Although I couldn't make much money, it was enough for our family to maintain what those commentators call a 'middle-class' lifestyle.
I still remember that every weekend back then, our family would put aside our work and go to 'Maya' Park in the Tingen suburbs for picnics. That was my most beautiful time and my only remaining memory now."
Speaking of this, the middle-aged vagrant named George wiped his eyes, his voice becoming choked with emotion, his face showing helplessness and anger.
"But with the passage and implementation of that damned 'Corn Laws,' my nightmare began. In just three days, grain prices began to collapse. The agricultural products I had purchased at high prices from Feysac could only be sold at three-tenths of the market price..."
Nimrod knew that after years of revision, the core of the "Corn Laws" implemented at the beginning of this year was to protect domestic agricultural product prices and reduce the prices of agricultural products purchased from other countries, thereby balancing the market.
George let out a long sigh and said sadly:
"Heh, in just one month, I went bankrupt... For those large grain merchants, they had already accumulated sufficient funds and their industries involved other fields. Even if the 'Corn Laws' were implemented, it wouldn't cause them much consequence.
But we're different. We simply don't have enough money to bear such consequences...
I don't know whether those members of parliament with baboon-like brains know what consequences the law's implementation would have on bottom-level grain merchants, nor do I know what changes occurred after the law was implemented. I only know that I went bankrupt...
Isn't it ridiculous? One day I was happily calculating how much profit I could make this time, thinking about bringing my wife the new dress she had been longing for, thinking about bringing my child the new toy produced by the Steam Church, and the next day I found myself facing bankruptcy.
They just moved their mouths and completely ruined my life."
Listening to George's account, Nimrod turned his head toward the window and saw faces with obvious signs of hunger. Some of them were still relatively alert, while others were so numb and exhausted they didn't seem human, like machines programmed with set routines.
In his heart, something seemed to be touched...
After drinking some tea, George spoke again:
"To pay off the debts, I sold the house, sold the farmland in the countryside, sold everything valuable I had, and moved with my wife and child into the rural cottage where my grandfather once lived.
At that time I thought, since I couldn't be a grain merchant anymore, I could do something else. I began working hard, began learning knowledge of other professions. I always believed my life would get better..."
"And then?"
Seeing George fall silent, Nimrod seemed to anticipate something and asked with a sigh.
"My wife got sick, my child got sick too. I had no money to get them medical treatment and could only borrow from loan sharks, but they still died...
I didn't even have money to bury them. It was only with help from a charity organization that I obtained a plot in a suburban cemetery... I watched with my own eyes as my wife lay in the coffin holding our five-year-old child and was buried underground...
After this blow, my spirit nearly collapsed. Every day I used what little money I had left to get myself drunk, as if only this way could I see them again in dreams.
But such times were also short-lived. As the repayment deadline arrived, one night they rushed into my house, took away everything valuable I had, and drove me out.
It was deep winter. Wearing tattered clothes, I walked on the road. Even the patrolling police wouldn't allow me to sleep on a public bench for one night.
They would only put on stern faces, wave their batons and shout loudly: 'Get up! Get up! You damned maggots, the streets and parks are not places for you lazy vagrants who don't want to work to sleep. Your existence is simply the shame of the Kingdom.'"
Nimrod knew this was a provision of the "Poor Law." To prevent the poor from becoming dependent on relief and turning into scoundrels, the Loen Kingdom's newly revised "Poor Law" of 16 years ago, besides this provision, even strictly stipulated that each poor person could stay in the workhouse for a maximum of five days and would be driven out if they exceeded this.
And during these five days, they still had to labor—breaking stones or picking rope fiber, which were also mandatory projects for criminals in prison.
Where was there any workhouse? It was just a "prison" full of free labor.
Hearing George calmly narrate his past, Nimrod fell into silence. At this moment he remembered a saying:
"Murder, arson, robbery—no one will say anything about these, but if you're poor, you'll definitely be mocked and discriminated against. Even if poor people won't harm others and are always honestly doing their proper work, for those in power, beggars all over the street affect the city's appearance."