In all that shop none other worked as diligently as Scharenstein. He was the first to arrive, and the last to leave, and through all the day he worked cheerfully, almost merrily, often humming old airs that his fellow-workers had not heard for many years. And a man who worked harder than his fellows in a sweatshop must surely have been queer, for in those days the sweatshop was a place where the bodies and souls of men and women writhed through hour after hour of torment and misery, until, in sheer exhaustion, they became numb. Scharenstein went through all this with a smile on his lips, and even on the hottest day, when there came a few moments’ respite, he would keep treading away at his machine and sing while the others were gasping for breath. And at night, when the work was done, and the weary toilers dragged themselves home and flung themselves upon their dreary beds, Scharenstein would trudge all the way down to the Battery and stand for hours gazing at the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. And as he gazed, the tense lines of his face would relax, and a bright light would come into his eyes, perhaps a tear would trickle down his cheek. Then, after holding out both arms in a yearning farewell, he would turn and walk slowly homeward. There was one day—it was in summer, when the thermometer stood at ninety-five in the shade—that the burden of life seemed too heavy to be borne. The air of the sweatshop was damp from the wet cloth, and hot from the big stove upon which the irons were heating. The machines were roaring and clicking in a deafening din, above which, every now and then, rose a loud hissing sound as a red-hot goose was plunged into a tub of water. The dampness and heat seemed to permeate everything; the machines were hot to the touch. Men sat stripped to their undershirts, the perspiration pouring from them. The sweater sat as far from the stove as he could get, figuring his accounts and frowning. The cost of labour was too high. Suddenly Marna, the pale, fat old woman who sat at a machine close by the ironers, spat upon the floor and cried: “A curse on a world like this!” Some looked up in surprise, for Marna rarely spoke, but the most of them went on without heeding her until they heard the voice of Scharenstein with an intonation that was new to them. “Right, Marna,” he said. “A terrible world. A terrible world it is. Ho! ho! ho!” They all looked at him. He was smiling, and turning around to look from face to face. Then, still smiling and speaking slowly and hesitatingly, as if he found it hard to select the right word, he went on: