Tom looked concerned, but made no endeavour to reply, and Berty went on:
“It is all very fine to talk of helping the poor, and uplifting the poor. It just makes them more pauper-like for you to settle down among them, and bear all the burden of lifting them up. They have got to help you, and because they won’t help me, I am going to leave River Street just as soon as I get money enough. I’m disgusted with these people.”
Tom, to Berty’s surprise, gave no expression of relief—and yet how many times he had begged her to turn her back on this neighbourhood.
The wharf-men sank into a state of greater sheepishness than before. One of them, who carried a whip under his arm, shifted it, and, reaching forward, pushed Malone with it.
Other of the men were nudging him, and at last he remarked, regretfully, “I’m sorry to hear you say that you want to quit the street, miss. I hope you’ll change your mind.”
“Well, now, do you think it is a nice thing for me to be constantly running about interviewing aldermen who hate the sight of me, on the subject of the rights of great strong men like you and these others? Come, now, is it work for a girl?”
“Well, no, miss, it isn’t,” said Malone, uneasily.
“Then why don’t you do it yourselves? The ideal thing is to trust people, to believe that your neighbour loves you as well as he does himself, but he doesn’t. He pretends he does, but you’ve got to watch him to make a pretence a reality. For the good of your alderman neighbour make him love you. You don’t want plush sofas and lace window curtains. Bah, I’m getting so I don’t care a fig for the ‘rags’ of life—but you want well-made furniture, and a clean pane of glass to look out at God’s sky.”
“That’s so,” muttered Malone.