Might have been a wrong hunch, as it turned out; but for awhile there what I wanted to do most was to take this Eggleston K. Ham, wad him up in a neat little lump, and stuff him into the waste basket. I wouldn't have been exertin' myself much, at that.

He's one of that kind, you know. Insignificant? Why, in full daylight you almost had to look twice to see him—and then you'd be guessin' whether it was a lath that had sprouted whiskers, or whiskers that was tryin' to bud a man! Them and the thick, gold-rimmed glasses sure did give him a comic, top-heavy look.

Course, we get all kinds in our buildin'; but when the lady voice culturist on the top floor sublets her studio for the summer to this freak I thought we'd gone from bad to worse. And she even has the nerve to leave the key with me, sayin' Mr. Ham would call for it in the course of a week or so.

We'd enjoyed about ten days of peace too, with no bloodcurdlin' sounds floatin' down the light shaft, and I was hopin' maybe the subtenant had renigged, when one mornin' the front office door opens easy, and in slips this face herbage exhibit. It's no scattered, hillside crop, either, but a full blown Vandyke. When he'd got through growin' the alfalfa, though, his pep seemed to give out, and the rest of him was as wispy as a schoolgirl.

He sidles up to the desk, where I have my heels elevated restful, and proceeds to make some throaty noises behind his hand. I'm just readin' how Tesreau pulled out of a bad hole in the seventh with two on bases; but I breaks away long enough to glance over the top of the paper.

"Go on, shoot it," says I.

"I—I'm very sorry," says he, "but—but I am Mr. Ham."

"Never mind apologizin'," says I. "Maybe it ain't all your fault. After the key, ain't you?"

"Yes, thank you," says he.

"Eggleston K., I suppose?" says I.

"Oh, yes," says he.

"Here you are, then, Eggy," says I, reachin' into a pigeonhole and producin' it. "What's your instrument of torture, the xylophone?"

"I—I beg pardon?" says he.

"Come now," says I, "don't tell me you're a trombone fiend!"

"Oh, I see," says he. "No, no, I—I'm not a musician."

"Shake, Eggy!" says I, reachin' out my hand impulsive. "And I don't care how many cubist pictures you paint up there so long as you ain't noisy about it."

He fingers his soft hat nervous, smiles sort of embarrassed, and remarks, "But—but I'm not an artist either, you know."

"Well, well!" says I. "Two misses, and still in the air. Is it anything you can speak of in public?"

"Why," says he, "I—I've said very little about it, as a matter of fact, but—but I am doing a little research work in—in anthropology."

"Good night!" says I. "Mixin' things up that's liable to blow the roof off, ain't it?"

"Why, no," says he, starin' at me puzzled. "It's merely studying racial characteristics, making comparisons, and so on. Incidentally, I—I'm writing a book, I suppose."

"Oh!" says I. "Authoring? Well, there's no law against it, and ink is cheap. Go to it, Eggy! Top floor, first door to your left."

And that seems to be the finish of the Ham incident. All was peaceful in the light shaft,—no squeaky high C's, no tump-tump-tump on the piano: just the faint tinkle of a typewriter bell now and then to remind us that Eggy was still there. Once in awhile I'd pass him on the stairs, and he'd nod bashful but friendly and then scuttle by like a rabbit.

"Must be a hot book he's writin'!" thinks I, and forgets his existence until the next time.

The summer moseys along, me bein' busy with this and that, goin' and comin' back, until here the other day when things is dullest Pinckney calls up from the club and announces that he's got a new customer for me, someone very special.

"Visitin' royalty, or what?" says I.

"Winthrop Hubbard," says he impressive.

"The guy that invented squash pie?" says I.

"No, no!" peeves Pinckney. "The son of Joshua Q. Hubbard, you know."

"I get you," says I. "The Boston cotton mill plute that come so near bitin' a chunk out of the new tariff bill. But I thought he was entertainin' the French Ambassador or someone at his Newport place?"

Well, he was; but this is only a flyin' trip. Seems Son Winthrop had fin'ly been persuaded to begin his business career by bein' made first vice president of the General Sales Company, that handled the export end of the trust's affairs. So, right in the height of his season, he's had to scratch his Horse Show entries, drop polo practice, and move into a measly six-room suite in one of them new Fifth-ave. hotels, with three hours of soul-wearin' officework ahead of him five days out of seven. He'd been at the grind a month now, and Mother had worried so about his health that Joshua Q. himself had come down to observe the awful results. Meanwhile Josh had been listenin' to Pinckney boostin' the Physical Culture Studio as the great restorer, and he'd been about persuaded that Son ought to take on something of the kind.

"But he wants to see you first," says Pinckney. "You understand. They're rather particular persons, the Hubbards,—fine old Plymouth stock, and all that."

"Me too," says I. "I'm just as fussy as the next—old Ellis Island stock, remember."

"Oh, bother!" says Pinckney. "Will you come up and meet him, or won't you?"

It wa'n't reg'lar; but as long as he's a friend of Pinckney's I said I would.

And, say, Joshua Q. looks the part, all right. One of these imposin', dignified, well kept old sports, with pink cheeks, a long, straight nose, and close-set, gray-blue eyes. They're the real crusty stuff, after all, them Back Bay plutes. For one thing, most of 'em have been at it longer. Take J. Q. Hubbard. Why, I expect he begun havin' his nails manicured before he was ten, and has had his own man to lay out his dinner clothes ever since he got into long pants.

Nothin' provincial about him, either. Takes his trip across every winter reg'lar, and I suppose he's as much at home on Unter den Linden, or the Place de Concord or Neva Prospect as he is on Tremont-st. And, sittin' there sippin' his hock and seltzer, gazin' languid out on Fifth-ave., he gives kind of a classy tone to one of the swellest clubs in New York. There ain't any snobbish frills to him, though. He gets right down to brass tacks.

"McCabe," says he, "what class of persons do you have as patrons."

"Why," says I, "mostly Wall Street men, with a sprinklin' of afternoon tea Johnnies, such as Pinckney here."

"No objectionable persons, I trust?" says he.

"Any roughneck gets the quick dump," says I.

"Ah, I think I catch your meaning," says he, "and I've no doubt your establishment can supply precisely what my son needs in the way of exercise. I suppose, however, I'd best see for myself. May we go now?"

"Sure," says I. "No special visitin' days."

"Then I'll 'phone Winthrop to meet us there," says he.

Seems he couldn't get Son direct; but he leaves word at his office, and then off we goes in Pinckney's limousine de luxe. It ain't often I worry any about the outside looks of things at the joint; but somehow, with this elegant old party comin' to inspect, I was kind of hopin' the stairs had been swept and that Swifty Joe wouldn't have any of his Red Hook friends callin' on him.

So I most gasps when we piles out in front of the studio and finds a mob that extends from the curb to the front door. Not only that, but the lower hall is crowded, and they line the stairs halfway up. And such a bunch! Waps, Dagoes, Matzers, Syrians, all varieties.

"By Jove, though!" says Pinckney. "What's all this?"

"Looks like someone was openin' a sweatshop in the buildin', don't it!" says I. "If that's so, here's where I break my lease."

"Really," says Mr. Hubbard, eyin' the crowd doubtful, "I hardly believe I care to——"

"Ah, I'll clear 'em out in two shakes," says I. "Just follow after me. Hey, you! Heim gagen. Mushong! Gangway, gangway!" and I motions threatenin'. "Ah, beat it, you garlic destroyers!" I sings out. "Back up there, and take your feet with you! Back, you fatheads!" and I sends one caromin' to the right and another spinnin' to the left.

The best I could do, though, was to open a three-foot lane through 'em, and there they stuck, lined up on either side like they was waitin' for a parade. It was something like that too,—me leadin' the way, Pinckney steerin' J. Q. by the arm. We'd got inside the doorway without a word bein' said, when a bright-eyed Dago girl with a rainbow-tinted handkerchief about her neck breaks the spell.

"Picture, Meester—take-a da picture?" says she pleadin'. With that the others breaks loose. "Picture, Meester! Please-a, Meester? Picture, picture!" They says it in all sorts of dialects, with all sorts of variations, all beggin' for the same thing. "Picture, picture!" They reaches out, grabbin' at our coat sleeves. Three of 'em had hold of J. Q. at once when I whirls on 'em.

"Ah, ditch the chorus!" I yells at 'em. "What do you think this is, anyway, a movie outfit? Get back there! Hands off, or I call the cops!"

It's strenuous work; but I manages to quiet 'em long enough for Pinckney and Mr. Hubbard to get through and slip up to the studio. Then I tries to shoo the bunch into the street; but they don't shoo for a cent. They still demands to have their pictures taken.

"Say, you Carlotta, there!" says I, singlin' out the Dago girl. "Who gave you this nutty picture hunch?"

"Why, Meester Hama," says she. "Nice-a man, Meester Hama."

"Is he?" says I. "Well, you wait here until I see him about this. Wait—understand?" With that I skips upstairs, and explains the mystery of our bein' mobbed. "It's a whiskered freak on the top floor they're after," says I. "Swifty, run up and get that Ham and Eggs gent. I'm yearnin' for speech with him. I don't know what this is all about; but I'll soon see, and block any encores."

"Quite right," says Mr. Hubbard. "This is all extremely annoying. Such a rabble!"

"Positively disgusting!" adds Pinckney. "A crowd of smelly foreigners! Shorty, you should put a stop to this."

"Trust me," says I. "Ah, here we have the guilty party!" and in comes Swifty towin' Eggleston K. by the collar. No wonder Eggy is some agitated, after bein' hauled down two flights in that fashion!

"Well," says I, as Swifty stands him up in front of us. "Who are your outside friends, and why?"

"My—my friends?" says he. "I—I don't understand. And I must protest, you know, against this manner of——"

"Gwan!" says I. "I'm doin' all the protestin' here. And I want to know what you mean by collectin' such a crowd of steerage junk that my customers can't get in without bein' mobbed? Howled for us to take their pictures, and mentioned your name."

"Oh! Pictures!" and Eggy seems to get the key. "Why, I—I'd forgotten."

"Can you beat that?" says I. "He'd forgotten! Well, they hadn't. But what's the idea, anyway? Collectin' fam'ly portraits of prominent gunmen, or what?"

"It—it's my way of getting material for my work," says Eggleston. "You see, through some friends in a settlement house, I get to know these people. I take snapshots of them for nothing. They like to send the pictures back home, you know, and I can use some of them myself."

"In the book?" says I.

"Perhaps," says Eggy, blushin'. "I had promised a few of them to take some studio pictures if they would come up to-day."

"And they didn't do a thing but bring all their friends," says I. "Must be fifty of them down there. You'll have a thick book before you get through."

"I beg pardon," puts in Mr. Hubbard, leanin' forward int'rested, "but may I ask the nature of the book?"

"It—it's to be about our foreign-born citizens," says Eggy.

"Ah, I see!" says J. Q. "Pointing out the evils of unrestricted immigration, I presume?"

"Well—er—not exactly," says Eggy.

"Then I should advise you to make it so," says Mr. Hubbard. "In fact, if the subject were well handled, and the case put strongly enough to meet my views, I think I could assure its immediate publication."

"Oh, would you?" says Eggleston, real eager. "But—but what are your views as to our treatment of aliens?"

"My programme is quite simple," says Mr. Hubbard. "I would stop all immigration at once, absolutely. Then I would deport all persons of foreign birth who had not become citizens."

Eggy gasped. "But—but that would be unjust!" says he. "Why, it would be monstrous! Surely, you are not in earnest?"

Mr. Hubbard's eyelids narrow, his jaw stiffens, and he emphasizes each word by tappin' his knee. "I'd like to see it done to-morrow," says he. "Check this flood of immigration, and you solve half of our economic and industrial problems. Too long we have allowed this country to be a general dumping ground for the scum of Europe. Everyone admits that."

"If you please," says Eggy, runnin' his fingers through his beard nervous, "I could not agree to that. On the contrary, my theory is that we owe a great deal of our progress and our success to the foreign born."

"Oh, indeed!" remarks Mr. Hubbard, cold and sharp. "And you mean to try to prove that in your book?"

"Something like that," admits Eggy.

"Then, Sir," goes on J. Q., "I must tell you that I consider you a most mischievous, if not dangerous person, and I feel it my duty to discourage such misdirected enterprise. Aren't you an instructor in economics under Professor Hartnett?"

Eggy pleads guilty.

"I thought I recognized the name," says J. Q. "Well, Mr. Ham, I am Joshua Q. Hubbard, and, as you may know, I happen to be one of the governing board of that college; so I warn you now, if you insist on publishing such a book as you have suggested, you may expect consequences."

For a minute that seems to stun Eggleston. He stares at Mr. Hubbard, blinkin' his eyes rapid and swallowin' hard. Then he appears to recover. "But—but are you not somewhat prejudiced?" says he. "I think I could show you, Sir, that these poor aliens——"

"Mr. Ham," says J. Q. decided, "I know exactly what I am talking about; not from hearsay, but from actual experience. Hundreds of thousands of dollars these wretched foreigners have cost me within the last few years. Why, that last big strike cut dividends almost in half! And who causes all the strikes, is at the bottom of all labor disturbances? The foreign element. If I had my way, I'd call out the regular army and drive every last one of them into the sea."

You'd most thought that would have squelched Eggy. I was lookin' for him to back through the door on his hands and knees. But all he does is stand there lookin' J. Q. Hubbard square in the eye and smilin' quiet.

"Yes, I've heard sentiments like that before," says he. "I presume, Mr. Hubbard, that you know many of your mill operatives personally?"

"No," says J. Q., "and I have no desire to. I haven't been inside one of our mills in fifteen years."

"I see," says Eggy. "You keep in touch with your employees through—er—your bankbook? But is it fair to judge them as men and women wholly on their ability to produce dividends for you?"

"As an employer of labor, what other test would you have me apply?" says J. Q.

"Then you are classing them with machines," says Eggy.

"No," says Mr. Hubbard. "I can depend upon my looms not to go on strike."

"But you own your looms," says Eggleston. "Your loom tenders are human beings."

"When they mob strike breakers they behave more like wild animals, and then you've got to treat 'em as such," raps back J. Q.

"Are you quite certain that the standards of humanity you set up are just?" asks Eggy. "You know people are beginning to question your absolute right to fix arbitrarily the hours and wages and conditions of labor. They are suggesting that your mills produce tuberculosis as well as cloth. They are showing that, in your eagerness for dividends, you work women and children too long, and that you don't pay them a living wage."

"Rot!" snorts J. Q. "These are all the mushy theories of sentimentalists. What else are these foreigners good for?"

"Ah, there you get to it!" says Eggy. "Aren't they too valuable to be ground up in your dusty mills? Can they not be made into useful citizens?"

"No, they can't," snaps Mr. Hubbard. "It's been tried too often. Look at the results. Who fill our jails? Foreigners! Who swarm in our filthy city slums? Foreigners! They are the curse of this country. Look at the wretched mob you have brought about your heels to-day, those outside there. There's a sample."

"If you only would look and understand!" says Eggleston. "Won't you—now? It will take only a little of your time, and I'll promise to keep them in order. Oh, if you'd only let me!"

"Let you what?" demands J. Q., starin' puzzled.

"Introduce a few of them to you properly," says Eggy; "only four or five. Come, a handful of simple-minded peasants can't hurt you. They're poor, and ignorant, and not especially clean, I'll admit; but I'll keep them at a proper distance. You see, I want to show you something about them. Of course, you're afraid you'll lose your cherished prejudices——"

"I'm afraid of nothing of the sort," breaks in Mr. Hubbard. "Go on. Have 'em up, if McCabe is willing."

"Eh?" says I. "Bring that mob up here?"

"Just a few," pleads Eggy, "and for ten minutes only."

"It might be sport," suggests Pinckney.

"I'll take a chance," says I. "We can disinfect afterwards."

Eggy dashes off, and after a lively jabberin' below comes back with his selected specimens. Not a one looks as though he'd been over more'n a year, and some are still wearin' the outlandish rigs they landed in. Then Eggy begins introducin' 'em. And, say, you'd hardly know him for the same bashful, wispy party that Swifty had dragged in a little while before. Honest, as he warms to it, he sort of swells up and straightens, he squares his shoulders, his voice rings out confident, and his eyes behind the thick glasses are all aglow.

"We will dispense with names," says he; "but here is a native of Sicily. He is about thirty-five years old, and he worked in the salt mines for something like twelve cents a day from the time he was ten until he came over here under contract to a padrone a few months ago. So you see his possibilities for mental development have been limited. But his muscles have been put to use in helping dig a new subway for us. We hope, however, that in the future his latent talents may be brought out. That being the case, he is possibly the grandfather of the man who in 1965 will write for us an American opera better than anything ever produced by Verdi. Why not?"

We gawps at the grandfather of the musical genius of 1965 and grins. He's a short, squatty, low-browed party with gold rings in his ears and a smallpox-pitted face. He gazes doubtful at Eggleston durin' the talk, and at the finish grins back at us. Likely he thought Eggy'd been makin' a comic speech.

"An ingenious prophecy," says Mr. Hubbard; "but unfortunately all Italians are not Verdis."

"Few have the chance to be," says Eggy. "That is what America should mean to them,—opportunity. We shall benefit by giving it to them too. Look at our famous bands: at least one-third Italians. Why, nine-tenths of the music that delights us is made for us by the foreign born! Would you drive all those into the sea?"

"Absurd!" says Mr. Hubbard. "I referred only to the lower classes, of course. But let's get on. What next?"

Eggy looks over the line, picks out a square-jawed, bull-headed, pie-faced Yon Yonson, with stupid, stary, skim-milk eyes, and leads him to the front. "A direct descendant of the old Vikings," says he, "a fellow countryman of the heroic Stefansson, of Amundsen. Just now he works as a longshoreman. But give him a fair chance, and his son's son will turn out to be the first Admiral of the Federal Fleet of Commerce that is to be,—a fleet of swift government freighters that shall knit closely together our ports with all the ports of the Seven Seas. Gentlemen, I present to you the ancestor of an Admiral!"

Pinckney chuckles and nudges Mr. Hubbard. Yonson bats his stupid eyes once or twice, and lets himself be pushed back.

"Go on," says J. Q., scowlin'. "I suppose you'll produce next the grandfather of a genius who will head the National Pie Bureau of the next century?"

"Not precisely," says Eggy, beckonin' up a black-haired, brown-eyed Polish Jewess. "A potential grandmother this time. She helps an aunt who conducts a little kosher delicatessen shop in a Hester-st. basement. Her granddaughter is to organize the movement for communal dietetics, by means of which our children's children are all to be fed on properly cooked food, scientifically prepared, and delivered hot at a nominal price. She will banish dyspepsia from the land, make obsolete the household drudge, and eliminate the antique kitchen from twenty million homes. Perhaps they will put up a statue in her memory."

"Humph!" snorts Mr. Hubbard. "Is that one of H. G. Wells' silly dreams?"

"You flatter me," says Eggy; "but you give me courage to venture still further. Now we come to the Slav." He calls up a thin, peak-nosed, wild-eyed gink who's wearin' a greasy waiter's coat and a coffee-stained white shirt. "From a forty-cent table d'hÔte restaurant," goes on Eggleston. "An alert, quick-moving, deft-handed person—valuable qualities, you will admit. Develop those in his grandson, give him the training of a National Academy of Technical Arts, bring out the repressed courage and self-confidence, and you will produce—well, let us say, the Chief Pilot of the AËro Transportation Department, the man to whom Congress will vote an honorary pension for winning the first Washington-to-Buenos Ayres race in a three-hundred-foot Lippmann Stabilized quadroplane, carrying fifty passengers and two tons of mail and baggage."

Mr. Hubbard gazes squint-eyed at the waiter and sniffs.

"Come, now, who knows?" insists Eggy. "These humble people whom you so despise need only an opportunity. Can we afford to shut them out? Don't we need them as much as they need us?"

"Mr. Ham," says J. Q., shuttin' his jaws grim, "my motto is, 'America for Americans!'"

"And mine," says Eggy, facin' him defiant, "is 'Americans for America!'"

"You're a scatterbrained visionary!" snaps J. Q. "You and your potential grandfather rubbish! What about the grandsons of good Americans? Do you not reckon them in at all in your——"

"Whe-e-e-e! Whoop!" comes from the hall, the front office door is kicked open joyous, and in comes a tall, light-haired, blue-eyed young gent, with his face well pinked up and his hat on the back of his head. He's arm in arm with a shrimpy, Frenchy lookin' party wearin' a silk lid and a frock coat. They pushes unsteady through Eggy's illustrious ancestor bunch and comes to parade rest in the center of the stage.

"Winthrop!" gasps Mr. Hubbard.

"Eh?" gasps the young gent, starin' round uncertain until he locates J. Q. Then he makes a stab at straightenin' up. "'S a' right, Governor," he goes on, "'s a' right. Been givin' lil' lu-luncheon to for'n rep'sen'tives. Put 'em all out but An-Andorvski, and he's nothing but a fish—deuced Russian fish. Eh, Droski?"

Believe me, with J. Q. Hubbard turnin' purple in the gills, and all them cheap foreigners lookin' on bug-eyed, it wa'n't any humorous scene. With the help of the waiter and the longshoreman they loads Winthrop and his friend into a taxi, and Pinckney starts with 'em for the nearest Turkish bath. The grandfather debate is adjourned for good.

I was talkin' it over with Swifty Joe, who, havin' been born in County Kerry and brought up in South Brooklyn, is sore on foreigners of all kinds. Course, he sides hearty with Mr. Hubbard.

"Ahr-r-r-chee!" says he. "That Hamand boob, stickin' up for the Waps and Guineas, he—he's a nut, a last year's nut!"

"Hardly that, Swifty," says I. "A next year's nut, I should say."