So you do, my young friend, and I have no doubt you know it a great deal better than I do; but I had a double motive in offering you the words of suggestion which you have taken the trouble to follow. In the first place, when the young literary man of limited achievement, referred to in an earlier part of this chapter, obtains an order for an article on “The Coast of Chatham Square,” he will probably come to you to find out where Chatham Square is and at what time they light the gas there: and I am sure you will be glad to help him to the full extent of your knowledge, although you may wonder why the order was given to him instead of to you. In the second place, although the whole of the east side is familiar ground to you, there are plenty of intelligent, well-informed men and women who know very little about what this city contains, and if you will read my next chapter you will learn of the impression which the tenement-house district made upon a certain distinguished gentleman who saw it recently for the first time. CHAPTER X. “HE TRUN UP BOTE HANDS!” One summer evening not very long ago, I saw, to my intense surprise, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder crawl cautiously through the barbed-wire fence which was long ago stretched, with his sanction, across the city at Cooper Union. Once within the tabooed district, the distinguished poet and _Century_ editor cast an apprehensive glance about him and then marched swiftly and resolutely down the Bowery. Late that night I caught another glimpse of him standing in the middle of one of the side-streets that lead to the East River, and gazing thoughtfully at the tops of the tall tenement-houses on either side of him. I could not help wondering what strange errand had brought him to that crowded quarter of the town, for not many months before one of his own trusted subordinates had blandly informed me that there was nothing in New York to write about, excepting, of course, such phases of its social life as had been portrayed, more or less truthfully and vividly, in the pages of Mr. Gilder’s own magazine. I was still marveling at the spectacle of the poet in search of facts when I came across one of my east-side acquaintances, who had seen and recognized the _Century_ editor, and from him I learned that he was pursuing his studies of what is known in the magazine offices as “low life,” not that he might write about it or be capable of judging the manuscript of those who did write about it, but by virtue of his office on the Tenement-house Commission. “He’s just been down Ludlow Street, an’ troo one o’ dem houses where de Jew sweaters is,” added my friend. “And what did he say to it all?” I inquired. “He trun up bote hands!” said the east-sider, earnestly.