He had relapsed into a sort of grim, unhappy lethargy, haunted by memories of his son's baby days, when the car stopped in the tenement-lined street, swarming with push-carts and children.
The damp, rank stench of the unwashed smote him as he stepped out and entered the dirty hallway, set with bells and letter boxes and littered with débris and filthy melting snow.
The place was certainly vile enough. A deformed woman with sore eyes directed him to the floor where the Schmidt family lived. On the landing he stumbled over several infants who were playing affectionately with a dead cat—probably the first substitute for a doll they had ever possessed. A fight in some room on the second floor arrested his attention, and he halted, alert and undecided, when the dim hallway resounded with screams of murder.
But a slatternly young woman who was passing explained very coolly that it was only "thim Cassidys mixing it"; and she went her way down stairs with her cracked pitcher, and he continued upward.
"Schmidt? In there," replied a small boy to his inquiry; and resumed his game of ball against the cracked plaster wall of the passage.
Answering his knock, a shapeless woman opened the door.
"Mrs. Schmidt?"
"Yes, sir,"—retying the string which alone kept up her skirt.
He explained briefly who he was, where he had been, what he had done through the United Charities for the child, Stephanie.
"I'd like to take a look at her," he added, "if it's perfectly convenient."