in. You've got some blocks with a density of over five hundred to the
acre, and your average density is considerably over a hundred."

"Are things any worse than in any other manufacturing city?" asked
Ditmar.

"That isn't the point," said Siddons. "The point is that they're bad,
they're dangerous, they're inhuman. If you could go into these tenements
as I have done and see the way some of these people live, it would make
you sick the Poles and Lithuanians and Italians especially. You wouldn't
treat cattle that way. In some households of five rooms, including the
kitchen, I found as many as fourteen, fifteen, and once seventeen people
living. You've got an alarming infant death-rate."

"Isn't it because these people want to live that way?" Ditmar inquired.
"They actually like it, they wouldn't be happy in anything but a
pig-sty--they had 'em in Europe. And what do you expect us to do? Buy
land and build flats for them? Inside of a month they'd have all the
woodwork stripped off for kindling, the drainage stopped up, the bathtubs
filled with ashes. I know, because it's been tried."

Tilted back in his chair, he blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling,
and his eyes sought Janet's. She avoided them, resenting a little the
assumption of approval she read in them. Her mind, sensitive to new
ideas, had been keenly stimulated as she listened to Siddons, who began
patiently to dwell once more on the ill effect of the conditions he had
discovered on the welfare of the entire community. She had never thought
of this. She was surprised that Ditmar should seem to belittle it.
Siddons was a new type in her experience. She could understand and to a
certain extent maliciously enjoy Ditmar's growing exasperation with him;
he had a formal, precise manner of talking, as though he spent most of
his time presenting cases in committees: and in warding off Ditmar's
objections he was forever indulging in such maddening phrases as, "Before
we come to that, let me say a word just here." Ditmar hated words. His
outbursts, his efforts to stop the flow of them were not unlike the
futile charges of a large and powerful animal harassed by a smaller and
more agile one. With nimble politeness, with an exasperating air of
deference to Ditmar's opinions, Mr. Siddons gave ground, only to return
to the charge; yet, despite a manner and method which, when contrasted to
Ditmar's, verged on the ludicrous, Mr. Siddons had a force and fire of
his own, ner