“People are happy,” she would say—­“most people are happy.  Human nature is bigger than environment—­it bubbles up through mud.  That’s almost the trouble with it.  If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they’d change things to-morrow.  No, Mr. Joe, it’s not a question of happiness; it’s a question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people’s possibilities.  It’s all the question of a better life, a richer life.  People are sacred—­they mustn’t be reduced to animals.”

And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about him—­learned better how to touch it, how to “work” it.  The paper became more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly.  Here and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up trade, making house-to-house canvasses.  In this way, the circulation finally reached the five-thousand mark.  There were certain unions, such as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special oracle—­swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of their mental life.

This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results.  Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of “that idiot, Joe Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street.”  As a passion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man.

“How perfectly lovely!” one fair visitor announced, while the office force watched her pose in the center of the room.  “Mr. Blaine, how dreadful it must be to live with the poor!”

“It’s pretty hard,” said Joe, “to live with any human being for any length of time.”

“Oh, but the poor!  They aren’t clean, you know; and such manners!”

Sally spoke coldly.

“I guess bad manners aren’t monopolized by any particular class.”

The flouncy one flounced out.

These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be stopped.  Even a sign, over the door-bell, “No begging; no slumming,” was quite ineffective in shutting out either class.

There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting type—­professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced.  Professor Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and vivisected his social organs.  Then there was Blakesly, the corporation lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and helping to dry the dishes.