ho had
_six_ sent her by different charitable institutions. That is what I
call a pressure of subsistence on population."

Something in Flint's manner jarred upon his companion. It seemed like
a determined opposition to any undue influence of sentiment or
emotion. Brady could not have defined the attitude of his friend's
mind; but he felt it, and resented it to the extent of keeping
silence after they had taken their seats in the car of the elevated
road.

There were few other passengers, and the car smelled of lamp-oil. All
surrounding influences tended to depress Brady's ordinarily buoyant
spirits, and he wished he had stayed at home, or at any rate had left
Flint behind. Meanwhile his companion, apparently wholly oblivious of
the frigidity of his companion's manner, sat with his hat pulled over
his eyes, and his face as undecipherable as the riddle of the Sphinx.

As the cars stopped at a station half-way between the up-town
residences and the downtown offices, in the slum belt of the city,
Brady buttoned up his overcoat and rose, saying shortly, "We get out
here."

"He has been here more than once," was Flint's inward comment; but he
made no reply, only followed in Brady's footsteps down the iron
stairs, and under the shadow of the elevated track for a block or two,
when Brady made a sharp wheel to eastward.

"Is this our street?" asked Flint, speaking for the first time.

"Yes, this is our street. Turn to the right--there where you see the
red lantern hanging out from the second story."

"Ah, you know the neighborhood well, I see. Lead on, and I will
follow. How dark it is down here!"

"Yes, electric lights are reserved for the quarters where you rich
people live."

"_You_ rich people!" Flint smiled to himself. "Pretty soon," he
thought, "Brady will be classing me among the greedy capitalists who
are battening on the sorrows of the poor." He was almost conscious of
a feeling of guilt as he recalled the fresh, pure air of the park and
contrasted it with this atmosphere. The name of Berry Hill seemed
curiously inappropriate for the level streets lined with tumble-down
tenements; and its suggestion of the long-ago days when vine-clad
uplands swelled between the narrowing rivers, and little children
steeped their fingers in nothing more harmful than the blood of
berries, lent an added pathos to the gloom of the contrasting present.

The slum post was a forlorn wooden building which had quite forgotten,
if