e the top floor easier to get at than the
second story of a dark, old-fashioned staircase building; and I've heard
that the marble mosaic entrances of the larger of them put the Italian
palaces to shame. I don't know Europe, but I do know New York, and I
believe, Mr. Burns, if you knew it as I do, you'd be as proud of it
too."

The Inspector looked at the boy quietly.

"You're wrong," he said soberly, "in thinking that I don't know New
York. To-morrow morning you do a little work in a section of the city in
which you have probably never been, and I think we'll hear less tall
talk. If you could count the tens of thousands of families who live in
rooms with nothing but court windows; if you could find out in how many
thousand families children are toiling under sweatshop conditions till
far into the night; if you were to ask the tuberculosis district nurses
what conditions they find, you might then do a little thinking on your
own account. It's only right you should be proud of New York, but you'd
better see both sides before you are sure of yourself. Now, I suppose
you're going home?"

"Yes, sir," said Hamilton, a little taken aback by his friend's rebuke.

"Call at my hotel early to-morrow morning and I'll start you on a
'Seeing New York' trip of a new kind." And turning off sharply, the
Inspector swung himself aboard a passing cross-town car.

Nine o'clock the next morning found Hamilton in one of the worst
districts he had ever seen. Thronged as it was, the boy was sufficiently
conscious of his difference from the people he met to feel
uncomfortable. He had one of the schedules that had been filled out
during the enumeration of the city, and the Inspector had bidden him
verify certain portions of it which were either confusing or slightly
incorrect. This was to be done in a dozen or so districts, and if the
information was found to be adequate, showing that the enumerators'
work had been faithfully done, there would be no need for further
inspection.

The home manufacture of ostrich feathers first gave Hamilton a clear
insight into poverty. Four or five rooms each occupied by a family of
several persons he entered in one tenement, and in each he found three
or four people working over ostrich plumes, working nervously at high
speed, afraid to stop, even for a moment. He noted conditions carefully,
and was amazed to find that each of the little strands was wired--he had
always supposed that plumes grew upon the