Finished. The whole thing has weighed so heavily on me. All interest in the work has gone. I have seen every form of misery the human mind could imagine. The facts merely repeat themselves. Hunger, degradation, insults, epilepsy. The investigators, the janitor, the policeman and Sam. From morning until night the same thing. I got to be callous. Well, people get trained to tolerate the most deadly poisons.

Thank God, my soul is not lost there. I cannot say that I come out unscathed. Oh, no. But I have retained my soul. Of all the different forms and institutions of charity which have come under my notice this is the worst place. Paris, London and Montreal are nothing to it. Of all the mills, here they grind the finest. I am leaving. Just going to finish the week. And I gave Sam a thrashing. I boxed his ears solidly and felt great pleasure in doing it. But this is not all. I did it in front of the applicants in the waiting room and finished it up thoroughly. Let me tell you how it happened.

About three weeks ago I was sent to investigate a case. Thoroughness was recommended. The address was in Sixty-sixth Street. Just as I entered the block a woman I had met casually at public meetings greeted me and asked whether I would not come up and have a glass of cold water. It was very warm and I did not refuse. I knew the woman but did not know her name and she did not know my present occupation. Great was my astonishment when we entered the very same house to which I was sent. It did not take long before I knew that she was the applicant.

I told her nothing, but inquired how she was getting along since her husband died. She told me that some relatives sent her money to open a grocery store and that a society in which her husband was an active member gave her a few hundred dollars. She intended to peddle with laces and curtains and perfumery. She even showed me a bill from a firm from whom she had bought merchandise to the value of one hundred and fifty dollars to start with. As she spoke her children came in, a girl of about ten and a boy of eleven. The children had never seen me before. They knew some one from the charities was expected. I divined it from their countenances that they expected to be questioned and had been schooled by the mother as to what to answer. I was right. When I asked the boy if he skated well, he answered that he had no skates, though I saw them under the bed. The mother interrupted him: "Sure he skates. He is one of the best skaters in the block. Put them on, Himey." The boy looked at the mother understandingly, as though he would ask, Is this not the one? and the mother repeated with emphasis: "Put them on, Himey." Pride, mother pride, was getting hold of her. "You should see them eat after a run!" I sat in the house a long time and convinced myself that she did not need help from charity. Her life and the life of her children would be wrecked. She had money. Her children go to school all day. She is strong and young. In accepting help from charity she and her children will become pauperised. She will not be able to attend to her business. She will have to do it secretly. All things taken into consideration, she will be the loser. I wanted to tell her all that, explain to her the wrong she is inflicting on herself and her children, that she is selling her soul and the lives of her children to the devil. But I could not open my mouth. I had come as a visitor.

Then, I did not want her to know my occupation. Spy of Charity. She does not know why I do it. All I did was to encourage her, and I told her in a roundabout way not to allow anybody to patronise her. "Attend to your business like a man. Be a business lady. There is money in lace curtains and perfumery. Take a servant to attend to the house and the children and you go out for business." This is what I told her. I even advised her to put out a sign at the door.

"This I cannot do," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I can't—many reasons why."

So, I thought, you bit the bait. It set me wild. Another customer, another target for Sam, another prey for the "Terror." And the children will be taught to lie, to cry and whine and beg. They will not be allowed to laugh or play. Every piece of meat they eat will be weighed and controlled. No roller skates, no new clothes. "Charity kids." No.

I made out a report in which I told the whole situation. That the woman has money and is about to start in business and needed no charity. I also asked them to keep my report strictly confidential, because I got the details as a "friend," and not as an investigator. How was I to know that the lady president of a Sisterhood affiliated to the office had recommended this case? Naturally, when she saw that her protÉgÉe was turned down she came to the office and demanded an explanation. The Manager showed her my report. The lady declared that it was a tissue of lies, and promised to bring the applicant to the office and have her face me. When I entered the private room of the Manager he began excusing himself because he was compelled to put me in a rather unpleasant position. However, he must prove to the lady that "our investigation is a thorough one," therefore he must ask me to face the applicant. I told him I would not do it under any circumstances. As a matter of fact, I said, I had betrayed her confidence.

"I have promised and you must do it," he repeated.

"You should not have promised before asking me," I retorted hotly.

He disregarded my remark and called the president of the Sisterhood to the desk. He introduced me and said that I was going to prove the case.

"No, I will not, sir," I repeated. "I have told you that my report was strictly confidential."

The gentleman wanted to demonstrate his superior position, and ordered. I refused again, finished it off with telling them both all I thought about their work and tendered violently my resignation.

Coming from the office I saw Sam aiming a "greeting" at an old man who sat in a corner of the waiting room. I watched him doing it. No sooner was he through than I got hold of him, boxed his ears soundly and before any one had time to interfere I had turned up his head and spat upon him full in the face. It was a disgusting act, but a sweet revenge. I did it, then called out, "Feel how it tastes—you do it to every one."

Needless to say, the whole office was up in a second. There was a terrible uproar. I won the enmity of the whole bunch. I had hit Sam—the pet, the future Manager; Sam, the greatest of them all; debased him in front of the applicants. The Assistant Manager came out to investigate what the noise was about. And no one—no one, not even the old man who was the direct cause of it, whose face was still wet from Sam's spittle, no one wanted to tell on Sam.

"Look, old man, your face is yet full of spittle."

"You are mistaken, sir," he answered, "to beat a boy. Shame, shame."

Soon all the applicants looked angrily at me and many said: "Shame, shame." Not one man or woman would admit that they had seen him do it at other times. I almost cried with rage.

The assistant manager was very much upset and wondered that I should do such a thing. "It puts you in a dangerous position," he told me.

I laughed. "My work is done. I have resigned," I answered as I went away. It's the best thing that could have happened.

I had a fine day. But why did not that old man tell the truth. If he were younger— But it's all over now. I am happy. I had a fine day.