Ever had it thrown into you like that? The sensation is a good deal like bein' tied to a post and havin' your pockets frisked by a holdup gang.

Anyway, that's the way I felt, and then the next minute I'm ashamed of havin' any such feelings at all; for there's no denyin' that dozens of cases like she mentions can be dug up in any crowded block. Seems kind of inhuman, too, not to want chip in and help save 'em. And yet there I was gettin' grouchy over it, without knowin' why!

"Well," says I, squirmin' in the chair, "I'd like to save five hundred, if I could. How many do you say you're going to take care of up at this new place?"

"Sixty," says she. "I select the most pitiful cases. I am taking some things to one of them now. I wish you could see the awful misery in that home! I could take you down there, you know, and show you what a squalid existence they lead, these Tiscotts."

"Tiscotts!" says I, prickin' up my ears. "What Tiscotts? What's his first name?"

"I never heard the husband mentioned," says Miss Ann. "I doubt if there is one. The woman's name, I think, is Mrs. Anthony Tiscott. Of course, unless you are really interested----"

"I am," says I. "I'm ready to go when you are."

That seems to jar Miss Colliver some, and she tries a little shifty sidestepping; but I puts it up to her as flat as she had handed it to me about savin' the five lives. It was either make good or welsh, and she comes to the scratch cheerful.

"Very well, then," says she, "we will drive down there at once."

So it's me into the Victoria alongside of Miss Ann, with the fat coachman pilotin' us down Fifth-ave. to 14th, then across to Third-ave., and again down and over to the far East Side.

I forget the exact block; but it's one of the old style double-deckers, with rusty fire escapes decorated with beddin' hung out to air, dark hallways that has a perfume a garbage cart would be ashamed of, rickety stairs, plasterin' all gone off the halls, and other usual signs of real estate that the agents squeeze fifteen per cent. out of. You know how it's done, by fixin' the Buildin' and Board of Health inspectors, jammin'

from six to ten fam'lies in on a floor, never makin' any repairs, and collectin' weekly rents or servin' dispossess notices prompt when they don't pay up.

Lovely place to hang up one of the "Home, Sweet Home" mottoes! There's a water tap in every hall, so all the tenants can have as much as they want, stove holes in most of the rooms, and you buy your coal by the bucket at the rate of about fourteen dollars a ton. Only three a week for a room, twelve dollars a month. Course, that's more per room than you'd pay on the upper West Side with steam heat, elevator service, and a Tennessee marble entrance hall thrown in; but the luxury of stowin' a whole fam'ly into one room comes high. Or maybe the landlords are doin'

it to discourage poverty.

"This is where the Tiscotts hang out, is it?" says I. "Shall I lug the basket for you, Miss Colliver?"

"Dear no!" says she. "I never go into such places. I always send the things in by Hutchins. He will bring Mrs. Tiscott down and she will tell us about her troubles."

"Let Hutchins sit on the box this time," says I, grabbin' up the basket.

"Besides, I don't want any second hand report."

"But surely," puts in Miss Ann, "you are not going into such a----"

"Why not?" says I. "I begun livin' in one just like it."

At that Miss Ann settles back under the robe, shrugs her shoulders into her furs, and waves for me to go ahead.

Half a dozen kids on the doorstep told me in chorus where I'd find the Tiscotts, and after I've climbed up through four layers of stale cabbage and fried onion smells and felt my way along to the third door left from the top of the stairs, I makes my entrance as the special messenger of the ministerin' angel.

It's the usual fam'ly-room tenement scene, such as the slum writers are so fond of describin' with the agony pedal down hard, only there ain't quite so much dirt and rags in evidence as they'd like. There's plenty, though. Also there's a lot of industry on view. Over by the light shaft window is Mrs. Tiscott, pumpin' a sewin' machine like she was entered in a twenty-four-hour endurance race, with a big bundle of raw materials at one side. In front of her is the oldest girl, sewin' buttons onto white goods; while the three younger kids, includin' the four-year-old boy, are spread out around the table in the middle of the room, pickin' nut meat into the dishpan.

What's the use of tellin' how Mrs. Tiscott's stringy hair was bobbed up, or the kind of wrapper she had on? You wouldn't expect her to be sportin'

a Sixth-ave. built pompadour, or a lingerie reception gown, would you?

And where they don't have Swedish nursery governesses and porcelain tubs, the youngsters are apt not to be so----But maybe you'll relish your nut candy and walnut cake better if we skip some details about the state of the kids' hands. What's the odds where the contractors gets such work done, so long as they can shave their estimates?

The really int'restin' exhibit in this fam'ly group, of course, is the bent shouldered, peaked faced girl who has humped herself almost double and is slappin' little pearl buttons on white goods at the rate of twenty a minute. And there's no deception about her being a fine case for Piny Crest. You don't even have to hear that bark of hers to know it.

I stands there lookin' 'em over for a whole minute before anybody pays any attention to me. Then Mrs. Tiscott glances up and stops her machine.

"Who's that?" she sings out. "What do you----Why! Well, of all things, Shorty McCabe, what brings you here?"

"I'm playin' errand boy for the kind Miss Colliver," says I, holdin' up the basket.

Is there a grand rush my way, and glad cries, and tears of joy? Nothing doing in the thankful hysterics line.

"Oh!" says Mrs. Tiscott. "Well, let's see what it is this time." And she proceeds to dump out Miss Ann's contribution. There's a glass of gooseb'ry bar le duc, another of guava jelly, a little can of pate de foie gras, and half a dozen lady fingers.

"Huh!" says she, shovin' the truck over on the window sill. As she's expressed my sentiments too, I lets it go at that.

"Looks like one of your busy days," says I.

"One of 'em!" says she with a snort, yankin' some more pieces out of the bundle and slippin' a fresh spool of cotton onto the machine.

"What's the job?" says I.

"Baby dresses," says she.

"Good money in it?" says I.

"Oh, sure!" says she. "Forty cents a dozen is good, ain't it?"

"What noble merchant prince is so generous to you as all that?" says I.

Mrs. Tiscott, she shoves over the sweater's shop tag so I can read for myself. Curious,--wa'n't it?--but it's the same firm whose name heads the Piny Crest subscription list. It's time to change the subject.

"How's Annie?" says I, lookin' over at her.

"Her cough don't seem to get any better," says Mrs. Tiscott. "She's had it since she had to quit work in the gas mantle shop. That's where she got it. The dust, you know."

Yes, I knew. "How about Tony?" says I.

"Tony!" says she, hard and bitter. "How do I know? He ain't been near us for a month past."

"Sends in something of a Saturday, don't he?" says I.

"Would I be lettin' the likes of her--that Miss Colliver--come here if he did," says she, "or workin' my eyes out like this?"

"I thought Lizzie was in a store?" says I, noddin' towards the twelve-year-old girl at the nut pickin' table.

"They always lays off half the bundle girls after Christmas," says Mrs.

Tiscott. "That's why we don't see Tony regular every payday any more. He had the nerve to claim most of Lizzie's envelope."

Then it was my turn to say "Huh!"

"Why don't you have him up?" says I.

"I'm a-scared," says she. "He's promised to break my head."

"Think he would?" says I.