n likely that his children won't. Because he was
starved and worked until all the life was squeezed out of him."

"Well, it's not that way in the North."

"Isn't it? Haven't I seen the tenement child sewing on the buttons to
pants, and coughing fit to send her in a few years to heaven--for if
those babies that have no chance in this world don't have one in the
next, there's no God."

"And I've seen things, too, Kitty. I've known a good many families that
were down and out, and it's always been one person of the lot who's been
to blame. If every one did his share, kept sober, worked hard and saved
money, he would get out of the tenement. When the family doesn't do
better, when it keeps staying in the dirt, it's because there's a father
perhaps who only works three days in the week and gets drunk the other
three, or there's a son who can't find the right job, a round peg in a
square hole. There's somebody who doesn't do right and keeps the family
back."

"And do you mean to say that rich folk aren't like that?" Kathleen was
growing very angry. "And yet I'm noticing they're not starved for it."

"If they're rich it's because they're industrious. My grandfather used
to tell me that America was the land of opportunity, and that it rested
with the individual whether or not he made a success."

"Oh!" Kathleen rose. She looked as though she could personally assault
the little man. He in the meantime had resumed his pipe and was talking
in a pleasant, matter-of-fact tone.

"Of course, I'm not denying, Kitty, that there are wrong things that
ought to be remedied. That case in the South, now. It's very hard. Of
course, the children should have schooling, and if the Blair Bill for
federal aid to education hadn't been killed, they would be having it
to-day. My grandfather used to say that this put back the South fifty
years. But given an education, it's a fair field and no favor for the
growing boy in the United States."

"I don't know how far back your Mr. Blair and his education may be, but
he can't be as far back as you are, Billy, with your fair field. Fair
indeed, with two per cent of the people controlling the wealth of the
country!"

"Those figures are exaggerated."

"Indeed, they are! It should be one per cent and it will be that soon."

"But suppose for argument that it is. Don't they control it for good?"

"For good! And every night you see the bread line for a block down the
Bowery?"

Applebaum laid down h