I suppose. I only know that at two o'clock
in the afternoon of every day but Sunday it is full of activity and
clatter; pulsations of some great engine shake it and there are
recurrent screams of wood tormented by the saw. At the window on which
the man fixes an intensely expectant gaze nothing ever appears; the
glass, in truth, has such a coating of dust that it has long ceased to
be transparent. The man looks at it without stopping; he merely keeps
turning his head more and more backward as he leaves the building
behind. Passing along to the next corner, he turns to the left, goes
round the block, and comes back till he reaches the point diagonally
across the street from the factory--point on his former course, which he
then retraces, looking frequently backward over his right shoulder at
the window while it is in sight. For many years he has not been known to
vary his route nor to introduce a single innovation into his action. In
a quarter of an hour he is again at the mouth of his dwelling, and a
woman, who has for some time been standing in the nose, assists him to
enter. He is seen no more until two o'clock the next day. The woman is
his wife. She supports herself and him by washing for the poor people
among whom they live, at rates which destroy Chinese and domestic
competition.

This man is about fifty-seven years of age, though he looks greatly
older. His hair is dead white. He wears no beard, and is always newly
shaven. His hands are clean, his nails well kept. In the matter of dress
he is distinctly superior to his position, as indicated by his
surroundings and the business of his wife. He is, indeed, very neatly,
if not quite fashionably, clad. His silk hat has a date no earlier than
the year before the last, and his boots, scrupulously polished, are
innocent of patches. I am told that the suit which he wears during his
daily excursions of fifteen minutes is not the one that he wears at
home. Like everything else that he has, this is provided and kept in
repair by the wife, and is renewed as frequently as her scanty means
permit.

Thirty years ago John Hardshaw and his wife lived on Rincon Hill in one
of the finest residences of that once aristocratic quarter. He had once
been a physician, but having inherited a considerable estate from his
father concerned himself no more about the ailments of his
fellow-creatures and found as much work as he cared for in managing his
own affairs. Both he and his wife we