Conover and Pastor Drury compared notes.  They were of one mind as to the conditions which Conover had found, conditions not surprising to the minister, who knew more about Delafield than any of his own people suspected.

One afternoon they met J.W. on the street, and he led them into a candy store for hot chocolate.

As they sipped the chocolate they talked; J.W., as usual, saying whatever he happened to think of.

“Say, Mr. Conover,” he remarked, “I notice in all your talk about the foreigner in America you haven’t once referred to the idea of the melting pot.  Don’t you think that’s just what America is?  All these people coming here and getting Americanized and assimilated and all that?”

“I’d think America was the melting pot if I could see more signs of the melting,” Conover answered.  “But look at Delafield; how much does the melting pot melt here?”

Then he looked across the store.  “Do you know the proprietor, Mr. Farwell?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed; Nick and I are good friends,” answered J.W.

“Then I wish you’d introduce me,” returned Conover.

“Oh, Nick,” J.W. called, “will you come over here a minute?”

Nick came, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Nick,” said J.W., doing the honors, “you know Mr. Drury, the pastor of our church.  And this is Mr. Conover from Philadelphia, a very good friend of ours.  He’s been looking around town, and wants to ask you something.”

Nick’s brisk and cheerful manner was at its best, for he liked J.W., besides liking the trade he brought.

“Sure,” said he, “I tell him anything if I know it.  Glad for the chance.”

“Mr. Dulas,” said Conover—­he had taken note of the name on the window, “you know the East Side pretty well, do you?  Then, you know that many Italians live just north of Linden Street, and there’s a block or so of Polish homes between Linden and the next street south?”

“Sure I do,” said Nick, confidently, “I live on other side of them myself.  See ’em every day.”

“Very well,” Conover went on.  “What I want to know is this:  how do the Italians and the Poles get along together?”

“They don’t have nothing much to do with one another,” Nick replied.  “It’s like this, the Poles they talk Polish, and maybe a little English.  The Italians, they speak Italian, and some can talk English, only not much.  But Poles they can’t talk Italian at all, and Italians can’t talk Polish.  So how could they get together?”

“That’s just the question, Mr. Dulas,” Conover agreed.  “I’m telling these gentlemen that it is harder for the different foreign-born people to know one another and to be friendly with one another than it is for them to know and associate with Americans.”

“Sure, Mister,” Nick said, with great positiveness.  “Sure.  Before I speak English I know nobody but Greeks, and when I start learning English I got no time to learn Polish, or Italian, or whatever it is.  English I got to speak, if I run a candy store, but not those other languages.”