“There are many wise old docteurs in the long street named Western Boulevard—­they live in the big houses—­but they don’t come to the tenement folks.”

“One of them will come this time even if I have to lug him on my back.”

He began to search for his hat, not remembering where he had tossed it in the haste and eagerness of his arrival at the good woman’s house.  He did not find it readily and he rushed out bareheaded.

“The sun and the air they do no good!  It is the poison water—­and the poor folks of the tenements they do not know!” muttered the old man.  “That is what he say?” He went to the kitchen sink and unscrewed the faucet.  He sniffed and made a wry face, then he ran his thin finger into the valve-chamber.  He hooked and brought forth stringy slime, held it near his nose, and groaned.  “The poor folks do not know.  They who ask for the votes of the slashers, the weavers, the beamers—­the men of the mills—­they who ask votes do not want the poor folks to know, because the votes would not be given to them who sell poison in the water,” he told the astonished good woman who had watched his act.

“I am careful about my kitchen—­I am neat—­I wash everything, Etienne,” she assured him, sniffing at the slime in the sink, overcome by confusion, her housewife’s reputation at stake.

“Yes, but you cannot wash the souls of them dam’ scoundrels who send that water through the pipes to the poor people who can buy no other,” he raged.  “This is not your blame—­you did not know.”  He pointed his finger, quivering, dripping with the slime, at the child on the bed.  “They have murder her!  With this!” He slatted his finger with the gesture of one who throws off a noisome serpent.

“But I drink the water—­it hasn’t made me sick,” she protested.

“You—­me—­odders that are all dry up—­tough old fools—­we ought to die and we don’t,” he raged, stamping back and forth across the kitchen, waving his arms.  “We have been poison so much we do not notice.  But the poor little childs—­the young folks that die—­die in these tenements all the time—­and we see the white ribbons hanging from the doors, so many place every day—­the poor young folks with life ahead and much to live for even down here—­they are poison and they do not know!  Oh, le bon Dieu!  Boil dem dam’ devil in hell in the water they have sell to the poor!” He stopped, shocked by these words he heard coming from his mouth, and crossed himself contritely.  “But I look at her—­I hear what the docteur say—­I talk and I cannot help!” He staggered into the room where the child lay, and sat down in a chair and held his face in his hands.

It was an aged and somewhat unctuous physician whom Farr brought.  The doctor pursed his lips and puckered his eyebrows above the little wraith who minded him not at all, lying with eyes half closed, plucking with finger and thumb at the bedclothing.

“With a bit stronger constitution—­if she were a little older—­Take the case of an adult—­”