in two narrow rooms—­one a bedroom, the other a kitchen—­every one at work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume—­every one, including the grandmother and little dirty tots of four and six—­and every one of them cross-eyed as a result of the terrific work.  He found one dark cellar full of girls twisting flowers; and one attic where, in foul, steaming air, a Jewish family were “finishing” garments—­the whole place stacked with huge bundles which had been given out to them by the manufacturer.  He found one home where an Italian “count” was the husband of an Irish girl, and the girl told him how she had been led into the marriage by the man’s promise of title and castle in Venice, only to bring her from Chicago to New York and confess that he was a poor laborer.

“But I made the best of it,” she cried.  “I put down my foot, hustled him out to work, and we’ve done well ever since.  I’ve been knocking the dago out of him as hard as I can hit!”

“You’re ambitious,” said Joe.

“My!  I’d give my hands for education!”

Joe prescribed The Nine-Tenths.

Everywhere he invited people to call—­“drop over”—­and see his plant and meet his mother.  Even the strange specimen of white woman who had married a negro and was proud of it.

“Daniel’s black outside, but there’s many stuck-up women I know whose white man is black inside.”

Absorbingly interesting was the quest—­opening up one vista of life after another.  Joe gained a moving-picture knowledge of life—­saw flashed before him dramatic scene after scene, destiny after destiny—­squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, respectability.  He never forgot the shabby dark back room where under gas-light a frail, fine woman was sewing ceaselessly, one child sick in a tumble-down bed, and two others playing on the floor.

“I’m all alone in the world,” she said.  “And all I make is two hundred and fifty dollars a year—­less than five dollars a week—­to keep four people.”

Joe put her on the free list.

He learned many facts, vital elements in his history.

For instance, that on less than eight hundred dollars a year no family of five (the average family) could live decently, and that nearly half the people he met had less, and the rest not much more.  That, as a rule, there were three rooms for five people; and many of the families gathered their fuel on the street; that many had no gas—­used oil and wood; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms.  That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their age as fourteen, and recreation meant an outing a year to Coney Island, and beer, and, once in a while, the nickel theater; that there were practically no savings.  And there was one conclusion he could not evade—­namely, that while overcrowding, improvidence, extravagance, and vice explained the misery of some families, yet there were limits.  For instance: