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 out with Miss Cole, the nurse, to visit her cases. It was hard for me to imagine anything more futile than her single-handed struggle against unsanitary tenements and unsanitary shops.

I remember especially one visit I made with her. It was the crisis for me. The case was a child-birth. There were six other children, all in one unventilated room; its single window looked out on a dark, choked airshaft; and the father was a drunkard. I remember sitting there, after the doctor had gone, holding the next youngest baby on my knee, while Miss Cole was bathing the puny newcomer.

"Can't you make him stop crying for a minute?" Miss Cole asked nervously.

"No," I said with sudden rage. "I can't. I wouldn't if I could. Why shouldn't he cry? Why don't the other little fools cry? Do you want them to laugh?"

She stopped working with the baby and offered me a flask of brandy from her bag. But brandy was not what I wanted. Of course I knew men sank to the very dregs. But I had never realized that some are born there.

When she had done all she could for the mother and child, Miss Cole put her things back in the bag and we started home. It was long after midnight, but the streets were still alive.

"What good does it do?" I demanded vehemently. "Oh, I know—you and the doctor saved the mother's life—brought a new one into the world and all that. But what good does it do? The child will die—it was a girl—let's get down on our knees right here and pray the gods that it may die soon—not grow up to want and fear—and shame." Then I laughed. "No, there's no