"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how dreadful it must be to live with the poor!"
"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any length of time."
"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!"
Sally spoke coldly.
"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular class."
The flouncy one flounced out.
These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was quite ineffective in shutting out either class.
There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting type—professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and helping to dry the dishes.
"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!"
Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man—so the legend runs—is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment: