Mika said:  “My name’s been up two months at my sister’s shop.  The landlady told us about your coming, Miss Ballard.  We was going to speak for you to our foreladies.”

Here my huge hostess, who during my stay stood close to my side as though she thought I needed her motherliness, put her hand on my shoulder.

“Yes, mon enfant, we didn’t want you to get discouraged in a strange place. Ici nous sommes toute une famille”.

“All one family?” Oh, no, no, kind creature, hospitable receiver of a stranger, not all one family!  I belong to the class of the woman who, one day by chance out of her carriage, did she happen to sit by your side in a cable car, would pull her dress from the contact of your clothes, heavy with tenement odours; draw back as you crushed your huge form down too close to her; turn no look of sisterhood to your face, brow-bound by the beads of sweat, its signet of labour.

Not one family!  I am one with the hostess, capable even of greeting her guest with insolent discourtesy did such a one chance to intrude at an hour when her presence might imperil the next step of the social climber’s ladder.

Not one family, but part of the class whose tongues turn the truffle buried in pate de foie gras; whose lips are reddened with Burgundies and cooled with iced champagnes; who discuss the quality of a canard a la presse throughout a meal; who have no leisure, because they have no labour such as you know the term to mean; who create disease by feeding bodies unstimulated by toil, whilst you, honestly tired, really hungry, eat Irish stew in the atmosphere of your kitchen dining-hall.

Not one family, I blush to say!  God will not have it so.

The Irish stew had all disappeared, every vestige.

“But mademoiselle eats nothing—­a bird’s appetite.”  And here was displayed the first hint of vulgarity we are taught to look for in the other class.

She put her hands about my arms. “Tiens! un bras tout de meme!” and she looked at Maurice, the young man on my right.

“Maurice c’est toi qui devrait t’informer des bras d’mademoiselle."

("Maurice, it is you who should inform yourself of mademoiselle’s arms.”)

Maurice laughed with appreciation, as did the others.  He was the sole American at table; out of courtesy for him we talked English from time to time, although he assured us he understood all we said in “the jargon.”

* * * * *

To Maurice a master pen could do justice; none other.  His type is seen stealing around corners in London’s Whitechapel and in the lowest quarters of New York:  a lounger, indolent, usually drunk.  Maurice was the type, with the qualities absent.  Tall, lank, loosely hung together, made for muscular effort, he wore a dark flannel shirt, thick with grease and oil stains, redolent with tobacco, a checked waistcoat, no collar or cravat.  From the collarless circle of his shirt rose his strong young neck and bullet head; his forehead was heavy and square below the heavy brows; his black eyes shone deep sunken in their caverns.