Westguard was saying very earnestly: "The world calls me a novelist. I am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message--a plain, simple, earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between wealth and poverty----" "That's right," interrupted a hoarse voice; "it's all a con game, an' the perlice is into it, too!" "T'hell wit te bulls! Croak 'em!" observed another gentleman thickly. Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom. "Ah, my friends!" cried De Groot, "if you could only realise how great is the love for humanity within my breast!--If you could only know of the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the problems of the poor! "And I _have_ solved them--every one. And _this_ is the answer!"--grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it--"this!" seizing another--"and this, and this! And now I ask you, _what_ is this mute answer which I have given you?" "De merry mitt," said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with sweetness and indulgence. "I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular," he said. "It _is_ the 'merry mitt'--the 'glad glove,' the 'happy hand'! Fifth Avenue clasps palms with Doyers Street----" "Ding!" said a weary voice, "yer in wrong, boss. It's nix f'r the Tongs wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A." Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. "The rich," he said, "are not really happy." His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with a kind of noble pity for his own weakness. "Dear, dear friends," he said tremulously, "believe me--oh, believe me that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question. With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject, dear friends, and talk on and on and on----" Emotion again checked him--or perhaps he had lost the thread of his discourse--or possibly he had attained its limit--but he filled it out by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out. Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with something or other.