Nobody Part 104

"On the contrary, Miss Madge. Your learning must be unlearnt. Art is really so near to nature--Check!--that it consists in giving again the facts and effects of nature in human language."

"Human language? That is, letters and words?"

"Those are the symbols of one language."

"What other is there?"

"Music--painting--architecture---- I am afraid, Miss Madge, that is check-mate?"

"You said you had seen and heard something, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Wishart now began. "Do tell us what. I have neither seen nor heard anything in an age."

Mr. Dillwyn was setting the chessmen again.

"What I saw," he said, "was a silk necktie--or scarf--such as we wear.

What I heard, was the price paid for making it."

"Was there anything remarkable about the scarf?"

"Nothing whatever; except the aforesaid price."

"What _was_ the price paid for making it?"

"Two cents."

"Who told you?"

"A friend of mine, who took me in on purpose that I might see and hear, what I have reported."

"_Two cents_, did you say? But that's no price!"

"So I thought."

"How many could a woman make in a day, Madge, of those silk scarfs?"

"I don't know--I suppose, a dozen."

"A dozen, I was told, is a fair day's work," Mr. Dillwyn said. "They do more, but it is by working on into the night."

"Good patience! Twenty-five cents for a hard day's work!" said Mrs.

Wishart. "A dollar and a half a week! Where is bread to come from, to keep them alive to do it?"

"Better die at once, I should say," echoed Madge.

"Many a one would be glad of that alternative, I doubt not," Mr.

Dillwyn went on. "But there is perhaps an old mother to be taken care of, or a child or two to feed and bring up."

"Don't talk about it!" said Mrs. Wishart. "It makes me feel blue."

"I must risk that. I want you to think about it. Where is help to come from? These are the people I was thinking of, when I asked you what was to be done with our poor."

"I don't know why you ask me. _I_ can do nothing. It is not my business."

"Will it do to a.s.sume that as quite certain?"

"Why yes. What can I do with a set of master tailors?"

"You can cry down the cheap shops; and say why."

"Are the dear shops any better?"

Mr. Dillwyn laughed. "Presumably! But talking--even your talking--will not do all. I want you to think about it."

"I don't want to think about it," answered the lady. "It's beyond _me_.

Poverty is people's own fault. Industrious and honest people can always get along."

"If sickness does not set in, or some father, or husband, or son does not take to bad ways."

"How can I help all that?" asked the lady somewhat pettishly. "I never knew you were in the benevolent and reformatory line before, Mr.

Dillwyn. What has put all this in your head?"

"Those scarfs, for one thing. Another thing was a visit I had lately occasion to make. It was near midday. I found a room as bare as a room could be, of all that we call comfort; in the floor a small pine table set with three plates, bread, cold herrings, and cheese. That was the dinner for a little boy, whom I found setting the table, and his father and mother. The parents work in a factory hard by, from early to late; they have had sickness in the family this autumn, and are too poor to afford a fire to eat their dinner by, or to make it warm, so the other child, a little girl, has been sent away for the winter. It was frostily cold the day I was there. The boy goes to school in the afternoon, and comes home in time to light up a fire for his father and mother to warm themselves by at evening. And the mother has all her housework to do after she comes home."

"That's better than the other case," said Mrs. Wishart.

"But what could be done, Mr. Dillwyn?" said Lois from her corner. "It seems as if something was wrong. But how could it be mended?"

"I want Mrs. Wishart to consider of that."

"I can't consider it!" said the lady. "I suppose it is intended that there should be poor people always, to give us something to do."

"Then let us do it."

"How?"

"I am not certain; but I make a suggestion. Suppose all the ladies of this city devoted their diamonds to this purpose. Then any number of dwelling-houses could be put up; separate, but so arranged as to be warmed by steam from a general centre, at a merely nominal cost for each one; well ventilated and comfortable; so putting an end to the enormity of tenement houses. Then a commission might be established to look after the rights of the poor; to see that they got proper wages, were not cheated, and that all should have work who wanted it. So much might be done."

"With no end of money."

"I proposed to take the diamonds of the city, you know."

"And why just the diamonds?" inquired Mrs. Wishart. "Why don't you speak of some of the indulgences of the men? Take the horses--or the wines--"

"I am speaking to a lady," said Dillwyn, smiling. "When I have a man to apply to, I will make my application accordingly."

"Ask him for his tobacco?" said Mrs. Wishart.

"Certainly for his tobacco. There is as much money spent in this city for tobacco as there is for bread."

Madge exclaimed in incredulous astonishment; and Lois asked if the diamonds of the city would amount to very much.