was not a
philanthropist or a social reformer; the inspiring thought of the
inexhaustible field for usefulness therein presented had never occurred
to him. He wished chiefly to get away from the stench and ugliness; and,
turning down a cross street, he started to return.

The locality he now entered was more modern and better lighted than the
one he left behind. The decorated building fronts, with their dazzling
electric signs, partook of the characteristics of the inhabitants, who
seemed overdressed and vulgarly ostentatious. The gaudily trapped
saloons, _cafes_, and music halls, spoke a similar message. This was the
recreation spot of the people of the quarter; their land of lethe. So
near were the saloons and drinking gardens that from their open doorways
there came a pungent odor of beer. Every place had instrumental music of
some kind. Mandolins and guitars, in the hands of gentlemen of color,
were the favorites. Pianos of execrable tone, played by youths with
defective complexions, or by machinery, were a close second. Before one
place, a crowd blocked the sidewalk; and there Ben stopped. A vaudeville
performance was going on within--an invisible dialect comedian doing a
German stunt to the accompaniment of wooden clogs and disarranged verbs.
A barker in front, coatless, his collar loosened, a black string tie
dangling over an unclean shirt front, was temporarily taking a
much-needed rest. An electric sign overhead dyed his cheeks with
shifting colors--first red, then green, then white. Despite its veneer
of brazen effrontery, the face, with its great mouth and two days'
growth of beard, was haggard and weary looking. Ben mentally pictured,
with a feeling of compassion, other human beings doing their idiotic
"stunts" inside, sweltering in the foul air; and he wondered how, if an
atom of self-respect remained in their make-up, they could fail to
despise themselves.

But the comedian had subsided in a roar of applause, and again the
barker's hands were gesticulating wildly.

"Now's your time, ladies and gentlemen," he harangued. "It's continuous,
you know, and Madame--"

But Ben did not wait for more. Elbow first, he pushed into the crowd,
and as it instantly closed about him the odor of unclean bodies made him
fairly hold his breath.

Straight ahead, looking neither to right nor to left, went the
countryman; he turned the corner of the block, a corner without a light.
Suddenly, with an instinctive tightening