Sperry Street shocked Hal.  He could not have conceived that a carefully regulated and well-kept city such as Worthington (he knew it, be it remembered, chiefly from above the wheels of an automobile) would permit such a slum to exist.  On either side of the street, gaunt wooden barracks, fire-traps at a glance, reared themselves five rackety stories upward, for the length of a block.  Across intersecting Grant Street the sky-line dropped a few yards, showing ragged through the metal cornice and sickly brick chimneys of a tenement row only a degree less forbidding than the first.  The street itself was a mere refuse patch smeared out over bumpy cobbles.  The visitor entered the tenement at 65, between reeking barrels which had waited overlong for the garbage cart.

He was received without question, as a reporter for the “Clarion.”  At first Sadie Breen, anaemic, hopeless-eyed, timorous, was reluctant to speak.  But the mother proved Hal’s ally.

“Let ’im put it in the paper,” she exhorted.  “Maybe it’ll keep some other girl away from them sharks.”

“Why didn’t your sister sue the company?” asked Hal.

“Where’d we get the money for a lawyer?” whined Sadie.

“It’s no use, anyway,” said Mrs. Breen.  “They’ve tried it in Municipal Court.  The sharks always wins.  Somebody ought to shoot that manager,” she added fiercely.

“Yes; that’s great to say,” jeered Sadie, in a whine.  “But look what happened to that Mason girl from Hoppers Hollow.  She hit at him with a pair of scissors, an’ they sent her up for a year.”

“Better that than Cissy Green’s way.  You know what become of her.  Went on the street,” explained Mrs. Breen to Hal.

They poured out story after story of poor women entrapped by one or another of those lures which wring the final drop of blood from the bleakest poverty.  In the midst of the recital there was a knock at the door, and a tall young man in black entered.  He at once introduced himself to Hal as the Reverend Norman Hale, and went into conference with the two women about a place for Sadie.  This being settled, Hal’s mission was explained to him.

“A reporter?” said the Reverend Norman.  “I wish the papers would take this thing up.  A little publicity would kill it off, I believe.”

“Won’t the courts do anything?”

“They can’t.  I’ve talked to the judge.  The concern’s contract is water-tight.”

The two young men went down together through the black hallways, and stood talking at the outer door.

“How do people live in places like this?” exclaimed Hal.

“Not very successfully.  The death-rate is pretty high.  Particularly of late.  There’s what a friend of mine around the corner—­he happens to be a barkeeper, by the way—­calls a lively trade in funerals around here.”

“Is your church in this district?”

“My club is.  People call it a mission, but I don’t like the word.  It’s got too much the flavor of reaching down from above to dispense condescending charity.”