rose half-satisfied, dizzy from the fumes and the bad air.  I am safe in saying that I never smelled anything like to Weyman’s, and I hope never to again.  Never again shall I hear food and drink discussed by the gourmet—­discuss, indeed, with him over his repast—­but there shall rise before me Weyman’s restaurant, low-ceiled, foul, crowded to overflowing.  I shall see the diners bend edged appetites to the unpalatable food.  These Weyman patrons, mark well, are the rich ones, the swells of labour—­able to squander fifteen to twenty cents on their stew and tea.  There are dozens, you remember, still in the unaired fourth and fifth stories—­at “lunching” over their sandwiches.  Far more vivid, more poignant even must be to me the vision of “Bobby.”  I shall see her eat her filthy sandwich with her blackened hands, see her stoop to blow the scum of deadly matter from her typhoid-breeding glass.

In Lynn, unless she boards at home, a girl’s living costs her at best $3.75 a week.  If she be of the average[4] her month’s earnings are $32.  Reduce this by general expenses and living and her surplus is $16, to earn which she has toiled 224 hours.  You will recall that there are, out of the 22,000 operatives in Massachusetts, 5,000 who make under $5 a week.  I leave the reader to compute from this the luxuries and possible pleasures consistent with this income.

  [Footnote 4:  Lynn’s average wages are $8 per week.]

A word for the swells of the trade, for swells exist.  One of my companions at 28 Viger Street made $14 a week.  Her expenses were $4; she therefore had at her disposition about $40 a month.  She had no family—­every cent of her surplus she spent on her clothes.

“I like to look down and see myself dressed nice,” she said; “it makes me feel good.  I don’t like myself in poor clothes.”

She was well-dressed—­her furs good, her hat charming.  We walked to work side by side, she the lady of us.  Of course she belongs to the Union.  Her possible illness is provided for; her death will bring $100 to a distant cousin.  She is only tired out, thin, undeveloped, pale, that’s all.  She is almost a capitalist, and extremely well dressed.

Poor attire, if I can judge by the reception I met with in Lynn, influences only those who by reason of birth, breeding and education should be above such things.  In Viger Street I was more simply clad than my companions.  My aspect called forth only sisterhood and kindness.

Fellowship from first to last, fellowship from their eyes to mine, a spark kindled never to be extinguished.  The morning I left my tenement lodging Mika took my hand at the door.

“Good-by.”  Her eyes actually filled.  “I’m awful sorry you’re going.  If the world don’t treat you good come back to us.”