Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message—a plain, simple, earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between wealth and poverty——"
"That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an' the perlice is into it, too!"
"T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly.
Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.
"Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great is the love for humanity within my breast!—If you could only know of the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the problems of the poor!
"And I have solved them—every one. And this is the answer!"—grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it—"this!" seizing another—"and this, and this! And now I ask you, what is this mute answer which I have given you?"
"De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with sweetness and indulgence.
"I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It is the 'merry mitt'—the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue clasps palms with Doyers Street——"
"Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A."
Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.