A thin line filed past them, grim-faced, silent. At the far end of the room, statistics in red inch-high type ran columnwise down the wall’s length. She read, with a gasp in her throat:
- Ten thousand people died from tuberculosis in the city of New York last year.
- Two hundred thousand people died from tuberculosis in the United States last year.
- Records of the Health Department show that there are 31,631 living cases of tuberculosis in the city of New York.
- Every three minutes some one in the United States dies from consumption.
“Oh, Charley, ain’t it awful!”
At a desk a young man, with skin as pink as though a strong wind had whipped it into color, distributed pamphlets to the outgoing visitors—a thin streamlet of them; some cautious, some curious, some afraid.
“Come on; let’s hurry out of here, Sweetness. My lung’s hurting this minute.”
They hurried past the desk; but the young man with the clear pink skin reached over the heads of an intervening group, waving a long printed booklet toward the pair.
“Circular, missy?”
Sara Juke straightened, with every nerve in her body twanging like a plucked violin string; and her eyes met the clear eyes of the young clerk.
Like a doll automaton she accepted the booklet from him; like a doll automaton she followed Charley Chubb out into the street, and her limbs were trembling so she could scarcely stand.
“Gotta hand it to you, Sweetness. Even made a hit on the fellow in the lung shop! He didn’t hand me out no literachure. Some little hit!”