"You didn't live here and don't remember, maybe," Owen remarked, "but the regular thing uptown was one of those lean, long blocks, flat-faced and solid, built to the sidewalk's edge. If it was a line of private houses they were bordered with gloomy little stone-paved areas, and ornamented with ash-cans and garbage pails. If the avenue end was faced with tall apartments, their lower margin was infested with a row of little shops--meat, fish, vegetable, fruit--with all their litter and refuse and flies, and constant traffic. Now a residence block is a thing of beauty on all sides. The really necessary shops are maintained, but planned for in the building, and made beautiful. Those fly-tainted meat markets no longer exist." "I _will_ talk!" said Hallie, so plaintively that we all laughed and let her. "That first one I was telling you about was very charming and attractive. There were arrangements on the top floor for nurseries and child gardens; and the roof was for children all day; evenings the grown-ups had it. Great care was taken by the management in letting this part to the best professionals in child culture. "There were big rooms, too, for meetings and parties; places for billiards and bowling and swimming--it was planned for real human enjoyment, like a summer hotel." "But I thought you said this place was for women," I incautiously ventured. "Oh, Uncle John! And has it never occurred to you that women like to amuse themselves? Or that professional women have men relatives and men friends? There were plenty of men in the building, and plenty more to visit it. They were shown how nice it was, you see. But the chief card was the food and service. This company engaged, at high wages, first-class houseworkers, and the residents paid for them by the hour; and they had a food service which was beyond the dreams of--of--homes, or boarding houses." "Your professional women must have been millionaires," I mildly suggested. "You think so because you do not understand the food business, Uncle John; nobody did in those days. We were so used to the criminal waste of individual housekeeping, with its pitifully low standards, and to monotonous low-grade restaurant meals, with their waste and extortion, that it never occurred to us to estimate the amount of profit there really was in the business. These far-seeing women were pioneers--but not for long! Dozens are claiming first place now, just as the early 'Women's Clubs' used to. "They established in that block a meal service that was a wonder for excellence, and for cheapness, too; and people began to learn." I was impressed, but not convinced, and she saw it. "Look here, Uncle John, I hate to use figures on a helpless listener, but you drive me to it."