It was the house at which I had had that memorable luncheon—and whither I was not to be invited any more.
"Why not?" he persisted. "I want you down in my settlement. I want to show you how you can be of help to us. Won't you come over to the fraternity house?" And when I again declined, he insisted on knowing why.
But I did not tell him. "Perhaps some of the members of your active chapter will tell you," I replied, "but I will not."
He looked at me sharply, and his face grew grim. "I see," he said warmly. "The nasty little cads. Well, it's harder for me to excuse them than it is for you—and I'm their sworn brother!"
So I made an appointment to come down to the settlement, instead, and to take supper with him there some evening. He wanted to show me the splendid organization of things there: the club rooms, the dance hall, the gymnasium and reading room. He wanted to introduce me to the resident leaders. He wanted to persuade me to become a leader, myself: to attend one of the clubs of young boys, to join with them in their meetings, their debates, their entertainments and studies, to help them by friendliness and example.
"I suppose," he said, when he left me at a subway kiosk, "that you feel mighty sorry that you didn't make a fraternity, don't you? Well, I'm offering you a membership in a bigger and better one than ever had a chapter in a college—the brotherhood of humanity. You'll be proud of it, little fellow, if you'll join. So come along down and let us 'rush' you!"
It was so good-natured a joke that I could not resent it. I had had my eyes opened, tonight, by some of the things that Mr. Richards had told me. I had learned that the city has its poor, its sick and wicked, its boys and girls embroiled in wrong environments, its lonely and unambitious, who must be comraded and wakened. And I had learned that I, young as I was, was able to help, to foster, to do good for such as these.
On the way home, I passed a street corner where boys a few years younger than myself were loitering in obscene play. A little further on I came to a girl, not more than fifteen or sixteen, who was being followed by some toughs. She was a Jewish girl, too, I noticed—and she was crying with fright. I put her on a street car to get her out of harm's way.
It was of just such as these, both boys and girls, that Mr. Richards had spoken this evening. Perhaps he was right—and what a noble thing to be able to join in the help and companionship which the settlement could give them. I resolved to go down to him the very next evening.
When I reached home, Aunt Selina was just getting ready for bed. She came out into the hall in a pink silk dressing-gown, all frills and ruffles, and asked me complainingly where I had been so long. She was angry at my abrupt departure when her evening's guests arrived.