"Aw, come on, Sweetness; nothing but a lot of T.B.'s."

"Let's--let's go in. See, it's free. Looka--it's all lit up and all;
see, pictures and all."

"Say, ain't I enough of a dead one without dragging me in there? Free! I
bet they pinch you for something before you get out."

"Come on, Charley; I never did see a place like this."

"Aw, they're all over town."

He followed her in surlily enough and then, with a morbid interest,
round a room hung with photographs of victims in various emaciated
stages of the white plague.

"Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful? Ain't it awful? Read them symptoms. Almost with
nothing it--it begins. Night sweats and losing weight and coughing,
and--oh--"

"Look! Little kids and all! Thin as matches."

"Aw, see, a poor little shaver like that! Look! It says sleeping in
that dirty room without a window gave it to him. Ugh, that old man!
'Self-indulgence and intemperance.' Looka that girl in the tobacco
factory. Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful! Dirty shops and stores, it says;
dirty saloons and dance halls--weak lungs can't stand them."

"Let's get out of here."

"Aw, look! How pretty she is in this first picture; and look at her
here--nothing but a stack of bones on a stretcher. Aw! Aw!"

"Come on!"

"Courage is very important, it says. Consumptives can be helped and many
are cured. Courage is--"

"Come on; let's get out of this dump. Say, it's a swell night for a
funeral."

She grasped at his coat sleeve, pinching the flesh with it, and he drew
away half angrily.

"Come on, I said."

"All right!"

A thin line filed past them, grim-faced, silent. At the far end of the
room, statistics in red inch-high type ran columnwise down the wall's
length. She read, with a gasp in her throat:

1--Ten thousand people died from tuberculosis in the city of New York
last year.

2--Two hundred thousand people died from tuberculosis in the United
States last year.

3--Records of the Health Department show that there are 31,631
living cases of tuberculosis in the city of New York.

4--Every three minutes some one in the United States dies from
consumption.

"Oh, Charley, ain't it awful!"

At a desk a young man, with skin as pink as though a strong wind had
whipped it into color, distributed pamphlets to the outgoing visitors--a
thin streamlet of them; some cautious, some curious, some afraid.

"Come on; let's hurry out of here, Sweetness. My lung's hurting this
minute."