“Oh, I see,” said Joe. “Them settlement houses does a lot of good.”
No response. She looked obstinately out of the window.
However “Settlement” had given Joe his line. He had heard all about those Christers who came down from up-town to lift up the poor. “On’y wisht I could go to one,” he said mournfully. “I’m so darn ign’rant.”
She did not rise to it.
Joe persevered. “I got no time for it. I gotta work nights as well as daytimes. . . .”
“What is your work?”
Joe smiled to himself. He had forced her to ask that. “Oh, I got a regular job in the daytime. Nights I sell papers to help out. I got heavy expenses. . . .” He left his sentence teasingly in the air.
“Expenses? A boy like you? . . . Huh? I suppose you mean you have to help out at home?”
Joe felt assured now that he could handle her. He proceeded to spread himself. “Oh, I ain’t got no regular home, like. I just sleep around where I can get the cheapest bed. Summer nights I often sleep in the park to save the price of a bed. I got a kid brother, you see. I got him boardin’ wit’ a nice family on East Broadway. I was just comin’ from there, when I seen you. Three dollars a week, I pay for him. That’s what keeps me hustlin’. . . . Besides his clo’es and all. . . .”
The lady came partly out of her corner. She was interested. “Why . . .” she said. “What stories one hears! . . . I don’t know. . . . It seems terrible. . . . Huh? Have you no father and mother?”