Or again, Dick told them of those other mills, which were the chief

foundation of St. Etienne's wealth, piles of gray stone, for ever

dust-laden and dingy, into which poured a never-ending stream of grain,

and out of which poured an equally unceasing stream of bags and barrels

laden with flour. Around the wide interiors wandered a few men, gray

too, who peeped now and then into caverns where hidden machinery did all

the work. Outside, locomotives whistled and puffed and snorted, as they

switched the miles of cars to and from the mills. Great vans rolled up

with their burdens of fresh empty barrels to be filled and rolled away

again.

It was the commonplace of daily toil, but Dick made it vivid, because it

was in him to see all things as the work of men, and whenever you catch

them doing real work, men are interesting.

Sometimes Dick had other stories to tell. In his collegiate days, he had

grown familiar with the typical slum and its problems. The class in

sociology had visited such. So he went to the slums of St. Etienne, and

behold, they were not slums at all, for the slum can not be grown, like

a mushroom, in a night. It must have a thousand nauseous influences

stagnating for a long time undisturbed. But here were meager little

wooden huts, flanked by rusting piles of scrap-iron, or flats along the

river-bottom where the high waters of spring were sure to send the

dwellers in these shabby apologies for homes scrambling to the roofs,

or drive them to the shelter of the neighboring brewery. Here as the

waters swept under the stony arches of the bridges, old women tucked up

their petticoats and fished for the richness with which a city befouls

its river. Here they made themselves neat woodpiles of the drift of the

sawmills, and turned an honest penny by exhibiting on their roofs gaudy

advertisements of plug-tobacco, that those who passed on the bridge

above might look down and read and resolve to avoid the brand thus

obnoxiously glorified.

Sometimes Dick had to relate a picturesque interview with a policeman

who unfolded to him unknown phases of life, for though he believed in

himself, Percival also believed in the other man, and therefore made him

a friend. Every one likes a jolly friendly prince, and that was Dick's

type.

Or he would dip into a police court where all the stages of wretchedness

were pitchforked into one another's evil-smelling company, so that it

ranged from the highest circle of purgatory to the lowest depths of

hell.

"Why do you go to such places, Dick? It's nauseating," Madeline

exclaimed.

"Why?" he demanded. "I suppose that sometime, when I've made over my

information into the neat systematic package that you prefer, I shall

start a soul-uplifting row. I look forward to that as my career. You

ought to get a career, Madeline."




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