"Church services."
"Well, I guess not. These guys don't want services--they want grub."
"I believe I will address them," the preacher said to Howard.
"On the subject of foreign missions?" Howard asked.
"A merited sarcasm," the minister replied. "Let us go."
In the alley near the door a woman and a ruffian were quarreling. The
woman held a piece of money in her hand and the ruffian was trying to
take it from her. A policeman passed down the alley, but paid no
attention. The ruffian demanded the money. The woman refused. He
knocked her down, took it from her hand and was walking off when Bradley
touched him on the shoulder. "Give her back that money," he said. The
man drew back his ponderous fist. At that moment Howard ran up. The
ruffian looked at him and let his arm fall. Bradley called the
policeman. He turned and came walking slowly back, swinging his club.
"What's wanted?" he asked. Bradley told him what had occurred. "It's a
lie!" exclaimed the woman, stepping forward. "You never hit me, did
you, Jack?"
"Never touched her," said Jack, and a group about the door of the
restaurant roared with laughter. "Move on," said the policeman, and
Howard and the preacher moved on, the crowd jeering them.
"What put it into your head to go there?" Howard asked.
"I thought it was my duty."
"A man's duty lies mostly among his own people," said the young lawyer.
"No, among stricken humanity."
"A heroic idea, but fallacious. The Lord takes care of His own. These
people are evidently not His own. Pardon my slang, but here is a
genuine gospel shop. Let us go in."
At the door of a room forbiddingly neat to the class which it intended
to feed, they were met by a cool young woman and a ministerial man. It
was a coffee house established to offset the influence of the saloon.
At the rear end of the room a young fellow played upon a wheezing
melodion. Girls were serving coffee. On the walls were pictures of the
Prodigal's Return, Daniel in the Lion's Den, Jacob before Pharaoh, The
Old Home, several cows, a horse with his head over a barred gate, and a
child lamenting over a broken doll. Howard called attention to the fact
that the sandwiches were thin and that the coffee looked pale. "It is
charity," said he, "and charity is pale. Now, let me take you to the
enemy--the den against which these mild batters are directed."
They went to a saloon. The place was ablaze with light. The walls were
hung with paintings, some of them costly, some modest, others
representing figures as nude as Lorado's nymphs. On a side counter was
a roast of beef, weighing at least a hundred pounds. "Look at that,"
said Howard. "Vice sets us a great roast--and for five cents, a glass of
beer, the vagabond may feast."
"The devil pandering to the drunkard and the glutton," replied the
preacher.
"But the devil is not pale; he is not niggardly--he is bountiful. To
cope with him, Virtue must be more liberal--give more beef and better
coffee."
"Good," said the minister. "I am going to preach a sermon on the Virtue
of Vice."
"Red beef versus pale coffee," Howard said, as they stepped out. "And
now," he added, "let us get something to eat and then go home."
"Home," repeated the preacher. "I have no home--I have lodgings.
"I know, and I mean that you must go home with me."
Bradley muttered a protest, but was delighted at the thought of seeing
Agnes again so soon. He had spent the afternoon at the Judge's house,
had left to unite in marriage a servant girl and a hackman, and now
wanted an excuse to return, not that he needed one, for the Judge had
urged upon him the freedom of the house; but timid love must show cause,
or rather must apologize to appearances. And, though the cause now was
not strong, yet he argued that the fact of meeting Howard would make it
valid enough. He felt that his secret was not known to the Judge, as if
that would have made any difference; and he was sure that the girl did
not more than suspect him. He wanted her to suspect him, for there was
a sweetness in it, but he wanted it to be as yet only a suspicion. He
did not acknowledge that he had quite made up his mind regarding her
fitness as a wife; and when a man thus reasons he is hopelessly
entangled. When a man decides that a woman is not fitted to be his wife
he may have arrived at reason but has stopped short of love.
They went to a place that makes a specialty of crabs and sat down in the
cool breath of an electric fan. "Quite a difference in our bill of
fare," said Bradley, taking up a long card framed in brass edged wood.
"And quite as much difference in our company," Howard replied.
"The old saying, Howard: 'One half the world doesn't know how the other
half lives.'"
"Doesn't know how the other half dies," said Howard.
"You are sententious tonight. I have led you into a place that has
sharpened your wits."
"But not into a place that sharpened my appetite. But it makes a meal
all the more enjoyable afterward. Do you find anything that hits your
fancy?"
During the meal the preacher talked of the vices of a great city. A
truthful farmer could have told him that there are almost as many vices
in the country, and an observant moralist could have assured him that
the great mass of women parading the sidewalks at night were sent
thither by the rural reprobate, proprietor of a horse and buggy.
"Vice is in man," said Howard.
"Ah, but how are we to eradicate it?"
"By educating woman."
"I don't know that I fully comprehend you."
"Were you ever in a place where women are shameless?"
"No," said the preacher. "The only shameless women I ever met are those
who accost me in the street."
"And if," said Howard, "you were to go into a thousand such places you
would not meet a well-educated woman. Some of them are bright; some
speak several languages, but I have yet to find one who speaks good
English. But we are on a subject that is as old as the ocean. It is,
however, always new to one in your profession, I suppose. You preach
about it, and innocence wonders at your insight, but the young fellow
who reports your sermon laughs in his sleeve."
"But, my gracious, Howard, what must we do, ignore it all?"
"I give it up."
"You are young to take so gloomy a view."
"Oh, I don't view it at all," said Howard. "I shoulder my way through
it."
An elderly woman, handsomely dressed, came up and held out her hand to
the preacher, who arose, bowed over it and declared his pleasure at
meeting her. Then he introduced her to Howard, a woman noted for her
work in the slums. A part of her labor was to talk morality to the
girls in department stores, to make them pious and virtuous on three
dollars a week. She kept a house of refuge which she visited once a
day, to talk to the women who had been gathered in from the streets and
the dens rented to vice by the rich. Her register showed that within
the past ten years thousands of women had been reclaimed. But the
register did not show how many had gone back to loud music and shame,
preferring the glare of infamy, tired out with the simmer of the
tea-kettle and the shadows of the kitchen. The preacher had visited her
place and had complimented her upon the work she was doing.
"Oh, what has become of Margaret, the blonde girl?"