Returning finally to the side of the old sweater, the officer handed him a printed form.
“You must make out this blank,” he said, “and have it ready for me when I call again.” And without another word he started for the stairs. But on the way some evidence of unsanitary condition more shocking than any met with yet—a heap of offal on the floor, or a fouler gust of poisoned air—checked him, and he turned, indignantly, to the nearest worker.
“Look here,” I could hear him say, “you’ve got to clean up here, and right away. The first thing you know you’ll start a fever that will sweep the city before we can stop it.”
The young Hebrew had stopped his work and turned half round in his chair until he faced the officer. There were deep lines in his haggard, beardless face, and his wolfish eyes were ablaze with the sense of sharp injustice.
“You tell us we’ve got to keep clean,” he answered, in broken English, lifting his voice to a shout above the clatter of machines. “What time have we to keep clean when it’s all we can do to get bread? Don’t talk to us about disease; it’s bread we’re after, bread!” And there sounded in the voice of the boy the cry of the hungry for food, which no man hears and can ever forget.
“DON’T TALK TO US ABOUT DISEASE; IT’S BREAD WE’RE AFTER, BREAD!”
The officer passed, speechless, up the steps, and we followed into the clean, pure air, under the boundless blue of smiling skies.