Mr. Johnson, if any man but you was talking to me like that, I’d knock his block off, the big boob! Why, whose business is it how many children I have? What do they expect she’s going to do? Lie on a couch an’ have me bring her ice cream all day long? I been married thirteen years next month, an’ if anybody wants to know how I treat my wife I refer them to her, I do. MAXWELL Well, Ryan, as I said, I’m inclined to think that these people that were talking to me were a bit hasty. But see here; listen to me a minute. These people want to do you a good turn. You’ll admit, I suppose, that it isn’t the finest life in the world for Mrs. Ryan to be staying down there in the basement all day and all night washing clothes and cooking meals and tending to the children. She’s sick every now and then, isn’t she? RYAN Now and then. MAXWELL Well, the idea is this: These people are what they call philanthropists--that is, they’re trying to make the world better, to make people happier. Now, they’ve built a very nice tenement house; it’s called a model tenement; it’s almost as good an apartment house to live in as this one. What they say is, that you can put Mrs. Ryan there, in a nice suite of rooms, with hot and cold water and a bathroom and electric light and everything for very little money--say five dollars a week. You can come there to sleep nights and you can get your breakfast and supper there with her in what they call the community dining room. You see, they do all the cooking for you and charge you just what the food costs for the meals. Your wife won’t have any more cooking to do, and they’ll give you better meals in that dining room than you’ve ever had before, believe me. RYAN I see. What about the washing? MAXWELL Well, they have a big laundry in the place and do all your washing for you for about half what a regular laundry would cost you. That sounds like a pretty good thing, doesn’t it? RYAN A pretty good thing, and I suppose there’s nursemaids and governesses for all the children, too, hey? MAXWELL Why, as a matter of fact there are--but not exactly in the way you mean. You see, they run a sort of a boarding school, too, the people that run this model tenement do, and they take care of all the children there--keep ’em night and day, feed ’em and dress ’em and teach ’em trades and all that sort of thing. They let them come to see you on Sunday, but you’re relieved of all responsibility and your wife of all the trouble. RYAN I see. But what’s to become of my job when I’m going off to this here model tenement to sleep nights? Don’t you know that a janitor has to sleep in the building he’s taking care of? MAXWELL