“No, sir.”
Mr. Horton smiled.
“Do you know what the duties are?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. Horton smiled again.
“Most of your work will be in the tenements, from house to house. Often from flat to flat. You’ll have to go wherever there is a dog—to see if it is licensed, healthy, and well cared for.”
It so happened that I did know all this. That was my reason for wanting the job—it would take me into the tenements, to meet tenement-dwellers face to face as fellow human beings. I would see the homes from which the men and girls, my fellow workers for so many months, come.
At last I was going into the tenements, stepping into a more dense section of the underbrush, where I would get at least glimpses of the heart of the jungle.
CHAPTER XV
THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE
The tenements of New York City! The change that I made—working with tenement-dwellers and living in rooming-houses to working in and living in the tenements—was like that experienced by a hunter when stepping from the outskirts to the depths of a jungle—a jungle abounding in treacherous quicksands and infested by the most venomous and noisome creatures of the animal kingdom—a swamp in which any misstep may plunge you into the choking depths of a quagmire or the coils of a slimy reptile.