lows against the windows, the shutters rattle and an ugly white china
knob, against which the curtains are draped, falls to the floor.
Tenderly, amazed, she picks it up and looks at it.

"Brown put that up," she says; "there hasn't no hand touched it since
his'n."

Proprietor of this house in which she lives, Mrs. Brown is fairly well
off. She rents one floor to an Italian family, one to some labourers,
and one to an Irishman and his wife who get drunk from time to time and
rouse us in the night with tumult and scuffling. She has a way of
disappearing for a week or more and returning without giving any account
of herself. Relations are strained, and Mrs. Brown in speaking of her
says:

"I don't care what trouble I was in, I wouldn't call in that Irish
woman. I don't have anything to do with her. I'd rather get the Dago
next door." And hereafter follows a mild tirade against the
Italians--the same sentiments I have heard expressed before in the
labouring centres.

[Illustration: CHICAGO TYPES]

"They're kind folks and good neighbours," Mrs. Brown explains, "but
they're different from us. They eat what the rest of us throw away, and
there's no work they won't do. They're putting money aside fast; most of
'em owns their own houses; but since they've moved into this
neighbourhood the price of property's gone down. I don't have nothing to
do with 'em. We don't any of us. They're not like us; they're
different."

Without letting a day elapse I started early the following morning in
search of a new job. The paper was full of advertisements, but there was
some stipulation in each which narrowed my possibilities of getting a
place, as I was an unskilled hand. There was, however, one simple "Girls
wanted!" which I answered, prepared for anything but an electric sewing
machine.

The address took me to a more fashionable side of the city, near the
lake; a wide expanse of pale, shimmering water, it lay a refreshing
horizon for eyes long used to poverty's quarters. Like a sea, it rolled
white-capped waves toward the shore from its far-away emerald surface
where sail-freighted barks traveled at the wind's will. Free from man's
disfiguring touch, pure, immaculate, it appeared bridelike through a
veil of morning mist. And at its very brink are the turmoil and
confusion of America's giant industries. In less than an hour I am
receiving wages from a large picture frame company in East Lake Street.
Once more I have made the obser