As for its tenants; they were exactly the sort of birds one might expect to find in such foul nests. They were of many nations, but of just two main varieties; stupid and squalid, or thin and furtive; but they were all dirty, and they bore, in their complexions, the poison of crowded breathing spaces, and bad sewerage, and unwholesome or insufficient food.
Into this mire, on a day when melting snow had fallen and made all underfoot a black, shining, oily, sticky canal, there drove an utterly out-of-place little electric coupé, set low, and its glistening plate glass windows hung with absurd little lace curtains held back by pink ribbon bows. At the wheel was the fresh-cheeked Gail Sargent, in a driving suit and hat and veil of brown, and with her was the twinkling-eyed Rufus Manning, whose white beard rippled down to his second waistcoat button. They drove slowly the length of the court and back again, the girl studying every detail with acute interest. They stopped in front of Temple Mission, which, with its ugly red and blue lettering nearly erased by years of monthly scrubbings, occupied an old store room once used as a saloon.
“So this is the chrysalis from which the butterfly cathedral is to emerge,” commented Gail, as Manning held the door open for her, and before she rose she peered again around the uninviting “court,” which not even the bright winter sunshine could relieve of its dinginess; rather, the sun made it only the more dismal by presenting the ugliness more in detail.
“This is the mine which produces the gold which is to gild the altar,” assented Manning, studying the sidewalk. “I don’t think you’d better come in here. You’ll spoil your shoes.”
“I want to see it all this time because I’m never coming back,” insisted Gail, and placed one daintily shod foot on the step.
“Then I’ll have to shame Sir Walter Raleigh,” laughed the silvery-bearded Manning, and, to her gasping surprise, he caught her around the waist and lifted her across to the door, whereat several soiled urchins laughed, and one vinegary-faced old woman grinned, in horrible appreciation, and dropped Manning a familiarly respectful courtesy.
There was no one in the mission except a broad-shouldered man with a roughly hewn face, who ducked his head at Manning and touched his forefinger to the side of his head. He was placing huge soup kettles in their holes in the counter at the rear of the room, and Manning called attention to this.
“A practical mission,” he explained. “We start in by saving the bodies.”
“Do you get any further?” inquired Gail, glancing from the empty benches and the atrociously coloured “religious” pictures on the walls to the windows, past which eddied a mass of humanity all but submerged in hopelessness.
“Sometimes,” replied Manning gravely. “I have seen a soul or two even here. It is because of these two or three possibilities that the mission is kept up. It might interest you to know that Market Square Church spends fifteen thousand dollars a year in charity relief in Vedder Court alone.”