Mr. Jimson shrugged his shoulders.
“Lots of boodle—I say, some of those aldermen ought to be dumped in the river.”
“You ought to get Berty out of city politics,” said Mr. Jimson, energetically. “That is no girl’s work.”
“She’s going to get out, Margaretta thinks,” said Roger, turning round and slowly walking down the main street of the city beside him. “But we’ve got to let her work out the problem for herself. You see, she’s no missionary. She is not actuated by the passion of a life-work. She has come to live in a new neighbourhood, and is mad with the people that they don’t try to better themselves, and that the city doesn’t enable them to do it.”
“She’ll probably marry Tom Everest, and settle down to housekeeping.”
“That will be the upshot of it. I’d be doubtful about it, though, if the River Street people had given her a hand in her schemes of reform.”
“She’s just an ordinary girl,” said the Mayor, briskly. “She’s no angel to let the River Streeters walk all over her.”
“No, she’s no angel,” returned Roger, with a smile, “but she’s a pretty good sort of a girl.”
“That she is,” replied Mr. Jimson, heartily. “Now tell me to a dot just what she has been doing since I went away. She seemed all right then.”
Roger looked amused, then became grave. “Just after you left, she got worked up on the subject of child labour. It seems the law is broken here in Riverport.”