XXV.

My entrance into the campaign was accompanied by a blare of publicity,

and during that fortnight I never picked up a morning or evening

newspaper without reading, on the first page, some such headline as

"Crowds flock to hear Paret." As a matter of fact, the crowds did flock;

but I never quite knew as I looked down from platforms on seas of faces

how much of the flocking was spontaneous. Much of it was so, since the

struggle had then become sufficiently dramatic to appeal to the larger

public imagination that is but occasionally waked; on the other hand, the

magic of advertising cannot be underestimated; nor must the existence be

ignored of an organized corps of shepherds under the vigilant direction

of Mr. Judd Jason, whose duty it was to see that none of our meetings was

lacking in numbers and enthusiasm. There was always a demonstrative

gathering overflowing the sidewalk in front of the entrance, swaying and

cheering in the light of the street lamps, and on the floor within an

ample scattering of suspiciously bleary-eyed voters to start the stamping

and applauding. In spite of these known facts, the impression of

popularity, of repudiation of reform by a large majority of level-headed

inhabitants had reassuring and reenforcing effects.

Astute citizens, spectators of the fray--if indeed there were any--might

have remarked an unique and significant feature of that campaign: that

the usual recriminations between the two great parties were lacking. Mr.

Parks, the Republican candidate, did not denounce Mr. MacGuire, the

Democratic candidate. Republican and Democratic speakers alike expended

their breath in lashing Mr. Krebs and the Citizens Union.

It is difficult to record the fluctuations of my spirit. When I was in

the halls, speaking or waiting to speak, I reacted to that phenomenon

known as mob psychology, I became self-confident, even exhilarated; and

in those earlier speeches I managed, I think, to strike the note for

which I strove--the judicial note, suitable to a lawyer of weight and

prominence, of deprecation rather than denunciation. I sought to embody

and voice a fine and calm sanity at a time when everyone else seemed in

danger of losing their heads, and to a large extent achieved it. I had

known Mr. Krebs for more than twenty years, and while I did not care to

criticise a fellow-member of the bar, I would go so far as to say that he

was visionary, that the changes he proposed in government would, if

adopted, have grave and far-reaching results: we could not, for instance,

support in idleness those who refused to do their share of the work of

the world. Mr. Krebs was well-meaning. I refrained from dwelling too long

upon him, passing to Mr. Greenhalge, also well-meaning, but a man of

mediocre ability who would make a mess of the government of a city which

would one day rival New York and Chicago. (Loud cheers.) And I pointed

out that Mr. Perry Blackwood had been unable to manage the affairs of the

Boyne Street road. Such men, well-intentioned though they might be, were

hindrances to progress. This led me naturally to a discussion of the

Riverside Franchise and the Traction Consolidation. I was one of those

whose honesty and good faith had been arraigned, but I would not stoop to

refute the accusations. I dwelt upon the benefits to the city, uniform

service, electricity and large comfortable cars instead of rattletrap

conveyances, and the development of a large and growing population in the

Riverside neighbourhood: the continual extension of lines to suburban

districts that enabled hard-worked men to live out of the smoke: I called

attention to the system of transfers, the distance a passenger might be

conveyed, and conveyed quickly, for the sum of five cents. I spoke of our

capitalists as men more sinned against than sinning. Their money was

always at the service of enterprises tending to the development of our

metropolis.

When I was not in the meetings, however, and especially when in my room

at night, I was continually trying to fight off a sense of loneliness

that seemed to threaten to overwhelm me. I wanted to be alone, and yet I

feared to be. I was aware, in spite of their congratulations on my

efforts, of a growing dislike for my associates; and in the appalling

emptiness of the moments when my depression was greatest I was forced to

the realization that I had no disinterested friend--not one--in whom I

could confide. Nancy had failed me; I had scarcely seen Tom Peters that

winter, and it was out of the question to go to him. For the third time

in my life, and in the greatest crisis of all, I was feeling the need of

Something, of some sustaining and impelling Power that must be presented

humanly, possessing sympathy and understanding and love.... I think I had

a glimpse just a pathetic glimpse--of what the Church might be of human

solidarity, comfort and support, of human tolerance, if stripped of the

superstition of an ancient science. My tortures weren't of the flesh, but

of the mind. My mind was the sheep which had gone astray. Was there no

such thing, could there be no such thing as a human association that

might at the same time be a divine organism, a fold and a refuge for the

lost and divided minds? The source of all this trouble was social....

Then toward the end of that last campaign week, madness suddenly came

upon me. I know now how near the breaking point I was, but the immediate

cause of my "flying to pieces"--to use a vivid expression--was a speech

made by Guptill, one of the Citizens Union candidates for alderman, a

young man of a radical type not uncommon in these days, though new to my

experience: an educated man in the ultra-radical sense, yet lacking poise

and perspective, with a certain brilliance and assurance. He was a

journalist, a correspondent of some Eastern newspapers and periodicals.

In this speech, which was reported to me--for it did not get into the

newspapers--I was the particular object of his attack. Men of my kind,

and not the Judd Jasons (for whom there was some excuse) were the least

dispensable tools of the capitalists, the greatest menace to

civilization. We were absolutely lacking in principle, we were ready at

any time to besmirch our profession by legalizing steals; we fouled our

nests with dirty fees. Not all that he said was vituperation, for he knew

something of the modern theory of the law that legal radicals had begun

to proclaim, and even to teach in some tolerant universities.

The next night, in the middle of a prepared speech I was delivering to a

large crowd in Kingdom Hall there had been jeers from a group in a corner

at some assertion I made. Guptill's accusations had been festering in my

mind. The faces of the people grew blurred as I felt anger boiling,

rising within me; suddenly my control gave way, and I launched forth into

a denunciation of Greenhalge, Krebs, Guptill and even of Perry Blackwood

that must have been without license or bounds. I can recall only

fragments of my remarks: Greenhalge wanted to be mayor, and was willing

to put the stigma of slander on his native city in order to gain his

ambition; Krebs had made a failure of his profession, of everything save

in bringing shame on the place of his adoption; and on the single

occasion heretofore when he had been before the public, in the School

Board fiasco, the officials indicted on his supposed evidence had

triumphantly been vindicated--, Guptill was gaining money and notoriety

out of his spleen; Perry Blackwood was acting out of spite.... I returned

to Krebs, declaring that he would be the boss of the city if that ticket

were elected, demanding whether they wished for a boss an agitator

itching for power and recognition....

I was conscious at the moment only of a wild relief and joy in letting

myself go, feelings heightened by the clapping and cheers with which my

characterizations were received. The fact that the cheers were mingled

with hisses merely served to drive me on. At length, when I had returned

to Krebs, the hisses were redoubled, angering me the more because of the

evidence they gave of friends of his in my audiences. Perhaps I had made

some of these friends for him! A voice shouted out above the uproar:--"I

know about Krebs. He's a d--d sight better man than you." And this

started a struggle in a corner of the hall.... I managed, somehow, when

the commotion had subsided, to regain my poise, and ended by uttering the

conviction that the common sense of the community would repudiate the

Citizens Union and all it stood for....

But that night, as I lay awake listening to the street noises and staring

at the glint from a street lamp on the brass knob of my bedstead, I knew

that I had failed. I had committed the supreme violation of the self that

leads inevitably to its final dissolution.... Even the exuberant

headlines of the newspapers handed me by the club servant in the morning

brought but little relief.

On the Saturday morning before the Tuesday of election there was a

conference in the directors' room of the Corn National. The city reeked

with smoke and acrid, stale gas, the electric lights were turned on to

dispel the November gloom. It was not a cheerful conference, nor a

confident one. For the first time in a collective experience the men

gathered there were confronted with a situation which they doubted their

ability to control, a situation for which there was no precedent. They

had to reckon with a new and unsolvable equation in politics and

finance,--the independent voter. There was an element of desperation in

the discussion. Recriminations passed. Dickinson implied that Gorse with

all his knowledge of political affairs ought to have foreseen that

something like this was sure to happen, should have managed better the

conventions of both great parties. The railroad counsel retorted that it

had been as much Dickinson's fault as his. Grierson expressed a regret

that I had broken out against the reformers; it had reacted, he

said,--and this was just enough to sting me to retaliate that things had

been done in the campaign, chiefly through his initiative, that were not

only unwise, but might land some of us in the penitentiary if Krebs were

elected.

"Well," Grierson exclaimed, "whether he's elected or not, I wouldn't give

much now for your chances of getting to the Senate. We can't afford to

fly in the face of the dear public."

A tense silence followed this remark. In the street below the rumble of

the traffic came to us muffled by the heavy plate-glass windows. I saw

Tallant glance at Gorse and Dickinson, and I knew the matter had been

decided between themselves, that they had been merely withholding it from

me until after election. I was besmirched, for the present at least.

"I think you will do me the justice, gentlemen," I remember saying

slowly, with the excessive and rather ridiculous formality of a man who

is near the end of his tether, "that the idea of representing you in the

Senate was yours, not mine. You begged me to take the appointment against

my wishes and my judgment. I had no desire to go to Washington then, I

have less to-day. I have come to the conclusion that my usefulness to you

is at an end."

I got to my feet. I beheld Miller Gorse sitting impassive, with his

encompassing stare, the strongest man of them all. A change of firmaments

would not move him. But Dickinson had risen and put his hand on my

shoulder. It was the first time I had ever seen him white.

"Hold on, Hugh," he exclaimed, "I guess we're all a little cantankerous

today. This confounded campaign has got on our nerves, and we say things

we don't mean. You mustn't think we're not grateful for the services

you've rendered us. We're all in the same boat, and there isn't a man

who's been on our side of this fight who could take a political office at

this time. We've got to face that fact, and I know you have the sense to

see it, too. I, for one, won't be satisfied until I see you in the

Senate. It's where you belong, and you deserve to be there. You

understand what the public is, how it blows hot and cold, and in a few

years they'll be howling to get us back, if these demagogues win.

"Sure," chimed in Grierson, who was frightened, "that's right, Hugh. I

didn't mean anything. Nobody appreciates you more than I do, old man."

Tallant, too, added something, and Berringer,--I've forgotten what. I was

tired, too tired to meet their advances halfway. I said that I had a

speech to get ready for that night, and other affairs to attend to, and

left them grouped together like crestfallen conspirators--all save Miller

Gorse, whose pervasive gaze seemed to follow me after I had closed the

door.

An elevator took me down to the lobby of the Corn Bank Building. I paused

for a moment, aimlessly regarding the streams of humanity hurrying in and

out, streaking the white marble floor with the wet filth of the streets.

Someone spoke my name. It was Bitter, Judd Jason's "legal" tool, and I

permitted myself to be dragged out of the eddies into a quiet corner by

the cigar stand.

"Say, I guess we've got Krebs's goat all right, this time," he told me

confidentially, in a voice a little above a whisper; "he was busy with

the shirt-waist girls last year, you remember, when they were striking.

Well, one of 'em, one of the strike leaders, has taken to easy street;

she's agreed to send him a letter to-night to come 'round to her room

after his meeting, to say that she's sick and wants to see him. He'll go,

all right. We'll have some fun, we'll be ready for him. Do you get me? So

long. The old man's waiting for me."

It may seem odd that this piece of information did not produce an

immediately revolting effect. I knew that similar practices had been

tried on Krebs, but this was the first time I had heard of a definite

plan, and from a man like Bitter. As I made my way out of the building I

had, indeed, a nauseated feeling; Jason's "lawyer" was a dirty little

man, smelling of stale cigars, with a blue-black, unshaven face. In spite

of the shocking nature of his confidence, he had actually not succeeded

in deflecting the current of my thoughts; these were still running over

the scene in the directors' room. I had listened to him passively while

he had held my buttonhole, and he had detained me but an instant.

When I reached the street I was wondering whether Gorse and Dickinson and

the others, Grierson especially, could possibly have entertained the

belief that I would turn traitor? I told myself that I had no intention

of this. How could I turn traitor? and what would be the object? revenge?

The nauseated feeling grew more acute.... Reaching my office, I shut the

door, sat down at my desk, summoned my will, and began to jot down random

notes for the part of my speech I was to give the newspapers, notes that

were mere silly fragments of arguments I had once thought effective. I

could no more concentrate on them than I could have written a poem.

Gradually, like the smoke that settled down on our city until we lived in

darkness at midday, the horror of what Bitter had told me began to

pervade my mind, until I was in a state of terror.

Had I, Hugh Paret, fallen to this, that I could stand by consenting to an

act which was worse than assassination? Was any cause worth it? Could any

cause survive it? But my attempts at reasoning might be likened to the

strainings of a wayfarer lost on a mountain side to pick his way in the

gathering dusk. I had just that desperate feeling of being lost, and with

it went an acute sense of an imminent danger; the ground, no longer firm

under my feet, had become a sliding shale sloping toward an unseen

precipice. Perhaps, like the wayfarer, my fears were the sharper for the

memory of the beauty of the morning on that same mountain, when, filled

with vigour, I had gazed on it from the plain below and beheld the sun

breaking through the mists....

The necessity of taking some action to avert what I now realized as an

infamy pressed upon me, yet in conflict with the pressure of this

necessity there persisted that old rebellion, that bitterness which had

been growing all these years against the man who, above all others,

seemed to me to represent the forces setting at nought my achievements,

bringing me to this pass....

I thought of appealing to Leonard Dickinson, who surely, if he knew of

it, would not permit this thing to be done; and he was the only man with

the possible exception of Miller Gorse who might be able to restrain Judd

Jason. But I delayed until after the luncheon hour, when I called up the

bank on the telephone, to discover that it was closed. I had forgotten

that the day was Saturday. I was prepared to say that I would withdraw

from the campaign, warn Krebs myself if this kind of tactics were not

suppressed. But I could not get the banker. Then I began to have doubts

of Dickinson's power in the matter. Judd Jason had never been tractable,

by any means; he had always maintained a considerable independence of the

financial powers, and to-day not only financial control, but the

dominance of Jason himself was at stake. He would fight for it to the

last ditch, and make use of any means. No, it was of no use to appeal to

him. What then? Well, there was a reaction, or an attempt at one. Krebs

had not been born yesterday, he had avoided the wiles of the politicians

heretofore, he wouldn't be fool enough to be taken in now. I told myself

that if I were not in a state bordering on a nervous breakdown, I should

laugh at such morbid fears, I steadied myself sufficiently to dictate the

extract from my speech that was to be published. I was to make addresses

at two halls, alternating with Parks, the mayoralty candidate. At four

o'clock I went back to my room in the Club to try to get some rest....

Seddon's Hall, the place of my first meeting, was jammed that Saturday

night. I went through my speech automatically, as in a dream, the habit

of long years asserting itself. And yet--so I was told afterwards--my

delivery was not mechanical, and I actually achieved more emphasis, gave

a greater impression of conviction than at any time since the night I had

lost my control and violently denounced the reformers. By some

astonishing subconscious process I had regained my manner, but the

applause came to me as from a distance. Not only was my mind not there;

it did not seem to be anywhere. I was dazed, nor did I feel--save once--a

fleeting surge of contempt for the mob below me with their silly faces

upturned to mine. There may have been intelligent expressions among them,

but they failed to catch my eye.

I remember being stopped by Grierson as I was going out of the side

entrance. He took my hand and squeezed it, and there was on his face an

odd, surprised look.

"That was the best yet, Hugh," he said.

I went on past him. Looking back on that evening now, it would almost

seem as though the volition of another possessed me, not my own:

seemingly, I had every intention of going on to the National Theatre, in

which Parks had just spoken, and as I descended the narrow stairway and

emerged on the side street I caught sight of my chauffeur awaiting me by

the curb.

"I'm not going to that other meeting," I found myself saying. "I'm pretty

tired."

"Shall I drive you back to the Club, sir?" he inquired.

"No--I'll walk back. Wait a moment." I entered the ear, turned on the

light and scribbled a hasty note to Andrews, the chairman of the meeting

at the National, telling him that I was too tired to speak again that

night, and to ask one of the younger men there to take my place. Then I

got out of the car and gave the note to the chauffeur.

"You're all right, sir?" he asked, with a note of anxiety in his voice.

He had been with me a long time.

I reassured him. He started the car, and I watched it absently as it

gathered speed and turned the corner. I began to walk, slowly at first,

then more and more rapidly until I had gained a breathless pace; in ten

minutes I was in West Street, standing in front of the Templar's Hall

where the meeting of the Citizens Union west in progress. Now that I had

arrived there, doubt and uncertainty assailed me. I had come as it were

in spite of myself, thrust onward by an impulse I did not understand,

which did not seem to be mine. What was I going to do? The proceeding

suddenly appeared to me as ridiculous, tinged with the weirdness of

somnambulism. I revolted, walked away, got as far as the corner and stood

beside a lamp post, pretending to be waiting for a car. The street lights

were reflected in perpendicular, wavy-yellow ribbons on the wet asphalt,

and I stood staring with foolish intentness at this phenomenon, wondering

how a painter would get the effect in oils. Again I was walking back

towards the hall, combating the acknowledgment to myself that I had a

plan, a plan that I did not for a moment believe I would carry out. I was

shivering.

I climbed the steps. The wide vestibule was empty except for two men who

stopped a low-toned conversation to look at me. I wondered whether they

recognized me; that I might be recognized was an alarming possibility

which had not occurred to me.

"Who is speaking?" I asked.

"Mr. Krebs," answered the taller man of the two.

The hum of applause came from behind the swinging doors. I pushed them

open cautiously, passing suddenly out of the cold into the reeking,

heated atmosphere of a building packed with human beings. The space

behind the rear seats was filled with men standing, and those nearest

glanced around with annoyance at the interruption of my entrance. I made

my way along the wall, finally reaching a side aisle, whence I could get

sight of the platform and the speaker.

I heard his words distinctly, but at first lacked the faculty of

stringing them together, or rather of extracting their collective sense.

The phrases indeed were set ringing through my mind, I found myself

repeating them without any reference to their meaning; I had reached the

peculiar pitch of excitement that counterfeits abnormal calm, and all

sense of strangeness at being there in that meeting had passed away. I

began to wonder how I might warn Krebs, and presently decided to send him

a note when he should have finished speaking--but I couldn't make up my

mind whether to put my name to the note or not. Of course I needn't have

entered the hall at all: I might have sent in my note at the side door.

I must have wished to see Krebs, to hear him speak; to observe, perhaps,

the effect on the audience. In spite of my inability to take in what he

was saying, I was able to regard him objectively,--objectively, in a

restricted sense. I noticed that he had grown even thinner; the flesh had

fallen away from under his cheek-bones, and there were sharp, deep,

almost perpendicular lines on either side of his mouth. He was emaciated,

that was the word. Once in a while he thrust his hand through his dry,

ashy hair which was of a tone with the paleness of his face. Such was his

only gesture.

He spoke quietly, leaning with one elbow against the side of his reading

stand. The occasional pulsations of applause were almost immediately

hushed, as though the people feared to lose even a word that should fall

from his dry lips. What was it he was talking about? I tried to

concentrate my attention, with only partial success. He was explaining

the new theory of city government that did not attempt to evade, but

dealt frankly with the human needs of to-day, and sought to meet those

needs in a positive way... What had happened to me, though I did not

realize it, was that I had gradually come under the influence of a tragic

spell not attributable to the words I heard, existing independently of

them, pervading the spacious hall, weaving into unity dissentient minds.

And then, with what seemed a retarded rather than sudden awareness, I

knew that he had stopped speaking. Once more he ran his hand through his

hair, he was seemingly groping for words that would not come. I was

pierced by a strange agony--the amazing source of which, seemed to be a

smile on the face of Hermann Krebs, an ineffable smile illuminating the

place like a flash of light, in which suffering and tragedy, comradeship

and loving kindness--all were mingled. He stood for a moment with that

smile on his face--swayed, and would have fallen had it not been for the

quickness of a man on the platform behind him, and into whose arms he

sank.

In an instant people had risen in their seats, men were hurrying down the

aisles, while a peculiar human murmur or wail persisted like an undertone

beneath the confusion of noises, striking the very note of my own

feelings. Above the heads of those about me I saw Krebs being carried off

the platform.... The chairman motioned for silence and inquired if there

were a physician in the audience, and then all began to talk at once. The

man who stood beside me clutched my arm.

"I hope he isn't dead! Say, did you see that smile? My God, I'll never

forget it!"

The exclamation poignantly voiced the esteem in which Krebs was held. As

I was thrust along out of the hall by the ebb of the crowd still other

expressions of this esteem came to me in fragments, expressions of sorrow

and dismay, of a loyalty I had not imagined. Mingled with these were

occasional remarks of skeptics shaken, in human fashion, by the

suggestion of the inevitable end that never fails to sober and terrify

humanity.

"I guess he was a bigger man than we thought. There was a lot of sense in

what he had to say."

"There sure was," the companion of this speaker answered.

They spoke of him in the past tense. I was seized and obsessed by the

fear that I should never see him again, and at the same moment I realized

sharply that this was the one thing I wanted--to see him. I pushed

through the people, gained the street, and fairly ran down the alley that

led to the side entrance of the hall, where a small group was gathered

under the light that hung above the doorway. There stood on the step, a

little above the others, a young man in a grey flannel shirt, evidently a

mechanic. I addressed him.

"What does the doctor say?"

Before replying he surveyed me with surprise and, I think, with

instinctive suspicion of my clothes and bearing.

"What can he say?" he retorted.

"You mean--?" I began.

"I mean Mr. Krebs oughtn't never to have gone into this campaign," he

answered, relenting a trifle, perhaps at the tone of my voice. "He knew

it, too, and some of us fellows tried to stop him. But we couldn't do

nothing with him," he added dejectedly.

"What is--the trouble?" I asked.

"They tell me it's his heart. He wouldn't talk about it."

"When I think of what he done for our union!" exclaimed a thick-set man,

plainly a steel worker. "He's just wore himself out, fighting that

crooked gang." He stared with sudden aggressiveness at me. "Haven't I

seen you some-wheres?" he demanded.

A denial was on my lips when the sharp, sinister strokes of a bell were

heard coming nearer.

"It's the ambulance," said the man on the step.

Glancing up the alley beyond the figures of two policemen who had arrived

and were holding the people back, I saw the hood of the conveyance as it

came to a halt, and immediately a hospital doctor and two assistants

carrying a stretcher hurried towards us, and we made way for them to

enter. After a brief interval, they were heard coming slowly down the

steps inside. By the white, cruel light of the arc I saw Krebs lying

motionless.... I laid hold of one of the men who had been on the

platform. He did not resent the act, he seemed to anticipate my question.

"He's conscious. The doctors expect him to rally when he gets to the

hospital."

I walked back to the Club to discover that several inquiries had been

made about me. Reporters had been there, Republican Headquarters had

telephoned to know if I were ill. Leaving word that I was not to be

disturbed under any circumstances, I went to my room, and spent most of

the night in distracted thought. When at last morning came I breakfasted

early, searching the newspapers for accounts of the occurrence at

Templar's Hall; and the fact that these were neither conspicuous nor

circumstantial was in the nature of a triumph of self-control on the part

of editors and reporters. News, however sensational, had severely to be

condensed in the interest of a cause, and at this critical stage of the

campaign to make a tragic hero of Hermann Krebs would have been the

height of folly. There were a couple of paragraphs giving the gist of his

speech, and a statement at the end that he had been taken ill and

conveyed to the Presbyterian Hospital....

The hospital itself loomed up before me that Sunday morning as I

approached it along Ballantyne Street, a diluted sunshine washing the

extended, businesslike facade of grimy, yellow brick. We were proud of

that hospital in the city, and many of our foremost citizens had

contributed large sums of money to the building, scarcely ten years old.

It had been one of Maude's interests. I was ushered into the reception

room, where presently came the physician in charge, a Dr. Castle, one of

those quiet-mannered, modern young medical men who bear on their persons

the very stamp of efficiency, of the dignity of a scientific profession.

His greeting implied that he knew all about me, his presence seemed to

increase the agitation I tried not to betray, and must have betrayed.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Paret?" he asked.

"I have come to inquire about Mr. Krebs, who was brought here last night,

I believe."

I was aware for an instant of his penetrating, professional glance, the

only indication of the surprise he must have felt that Hermann Krebs, of

all men, should be the object of my solicitude.

"Why, we sent him home this morning. Nineteen twenty six Fowler Street.

He wanted to go, and there was no use in his staying."

"He will recover?" I asked.

The physician shook his head, gazing at me through his glasses.

"He may live a month, Mr. Paret, he may die to-morrow. He ought never to

have gone into this campaign, he knew he had this trouble. Hepburn warned

him three months ago, and there's no man who knows more about the heart

than Hepburn."

"Then there's no hope?" I asked.

"Absolutely none. It's a great pity." He added, after a moment, "Mr.

Krebs was a remarkable man."

"Nineteen twenty-six Fowler Street?" I repeated.

"Yes."

I held out my hand mechanically, and he pressed it, and went with me to

the door.

"Nineteen twenty-six Fowler Street," he repeated...

The mean and sordid aspect of Fowler Street emphasized and seemed to

typify my despair, the pungent coal smoke stifled my lungs even as it

stifled my spirit. Ugly factories, which were little more than

sweatshops, wore an empty, menacing, "Sunday" look, and the faint

November sunlight glistened on dirty pavements where children were making

a semblance of play. Monotonous rows of red houses succeeded one another,

some pushed forward, others thrust back behind little plots of stamped

earth. Into one of these I turned. It seemed a little cleaner, better

kept, less sordid than the others. I pulled the bell, and presently the

door was opened by a woman whose arms were bare to the elbow. She wore a

blue-checked calico apron that came to her throat, but the apron was

clean, and her firm though furrowed face gave evidences of recent

housewifely exertions. Her eyes had the strange look of the cheerfulness

that is intimately acquainted with sorrow. She did not seem surprised at

seeing me.

"I have come to ask about Mr. Krebs," I told her.

"Oh, yes," she said, "there's been so many here this morning already.

It's wonderful how people love him, all kinds of people. No, sir, he

don't seem to be in any pain. Two gentlemen are up there now in his room,

I mean."

She wiped her arms, which still bore traces of soap-suds, and then, with

a gesture natural and unashamed, lifted the corner of her apron to her

eyes.

"Do you think I could see him--for a moment?" I asked. "I've known him

for a long time."

"Why, I don't know," she said, "I guess so. The doctor said he could see

some, and he wants to see his friends. That's not strange--he always did.

I'll ask. Will you tell me your name?"