"I was about to say among our supporters. It is most regrettable that your ill-advised attack on him may alienate many of them. It seems also that you have dragged the name of the settlement into the mire of Socialism. I must confess that I hardly know—that, in fact, I am at a loss...."
"You needn't worry about it. Whitman and I will leave. All you have to do is to roll your eyes if we are mentioned, and say—'Yes. It was most regrettable—but of course they left the settlement at once!' Invite Root to dinner a couple of times. Walk up and down Stanton Street with him—arm in arm. It will blow over—it will square everything with 'the best people'!"
"I am sorry to hear you speak so bitterly," Dawn said, "But frankly, I think it wisest that you should sever your connection with us. When the welfare of the whole settlement movement is at stake, I cannot allow my personal feelings to blind my...."
"Oh, don't apologize. There is no personal ill-feeling."
And so we left the settlement.
BOOK V
I
Benson and I set up housekeeping in the top floor of an old mansion on Eldridge Street. Once upon a time it had boasted of a fine lawn before it, and of orchards and gardens on all sides. But it had been submerged in the slums. You stepped out of the front door onto the busy sidewalk, and dumb-bell tenements springing up close about it had robbed it of all its former glory. Two mansard bedrooms in the front we threw together, making a large study. We put in an open fire-place, built some settees into the walls and before the windows. There were bookcases all about, some great chairs and a round table for writing and for meals. Of the rooms in the back we arranged two for sleeping, turned one into a kitchen and a fourth into a commodious bath. With his usual love for the incongruous, Norman nicknamed the establishment—"The Teepee."
In my work in the Tombs I had one time been able to clearly show the innocence of an old Garibaldian, who was charged with murder. He felt that he owed his life to me, and so became my devoted slave. His name was Guiseppe and he had fought for Liberty on two continents. It was hard to tell which was the more picturesque, his shaggy mane of white hair or his language—a goulash of words picked up in many lands. Within his disappointed, defeated body he still nursed the ardent flame of idealism. The spirit of Mazzini's "Young Italy," the dream of "The Universal Republic" lived on in spite of all the disillusionment which old age in poverty and exile had brought him.
In the Franco-Prussian War, while campaigning in The Vosges, he had cooked for the Great Liberator. We installed him in the kitchen of the Teepee. His especial pride was a pepper and garlic stew which Garibaldi had praised. This dish threatened to be the death of us. It was the trump he always led when in doubt.