As far as the squalor of the men and their surroundings was concerned, although it was at first something of a shock to me, I did not allow myself to be disconcerted on its account. I had no desire or ambition to be a mere dilettante Socialist, and as dirt and squalor had to be faced, well, I was ready to face them. A famous Russian writer has described a strange phase through which the Russian youth passed not many years since, the "V. Narod" ("To the People!") movement, when young men and girls by the thousands, some belonging to the highest classes in society, fled from their families, tore themselves free from all domestic and conventional yokes, persuaded that it was their duty to serve the cause of the masses, and that in no way could they better accomplish this object than by settling in the people's midst, living their life, taking part in their work. I was passing through a similar phase of mental evolution. I felt a strong desire to free myself from all the ideas, customs, and prejudices which usually influence my class, to throw myself into the life and the work of the masses. Thus it was that I worked hard to learn how to compose and print, that I might be of use to the Cause in the most practical manner of all--the actual production of its literature. Thus it was also that I resolutely hardened myself against any instinctive sentiments of repulsion which the unclean and squalid surroundings of the people might raise in me. I remember reading an article by Tolstoi which appeared in the English press, dealing with the conditions of the Russian _moujik_, in which he clearly and uncompromisingly stated that in order to tackle the social problem, it is necessary to tackle dirt and vermin with it. If you desire to reach your _moujik_ you must reach him _à travers_ his dirt and his parasites: if you are disinclined to face these, then leave your _moujik_ alone. It was in fact a case of "take me, take my squalor." I determined to take both. Dr. Armitage left me at the corner of Oxford Circus, but before I had taken many steps farther, I heard him suddenly turn round, and in an instant he had come up with me again. "By the way, Isabel," he exclaimed, "I was quite forgetting to mention something I had done, to which I trust you will not object. You know how full up my place is just now with hard-up comrades. Well I took the liberty to send on to you a young Scotchman, I forget his name, who has just tramped up from the North; a most interesting fellow, rather taciturn, but with doubtless a good deal in him. He had nowhere to pass the night, poor chap, and no money, so I told him that if he waited on your doorstep some time after midnight you would be certain to give him a night's lodgings when you returned. Did I do right?" and the doctor's kindly face beamed with the look of a man who expected approbation.