As it appeared to him to-day, so had it never appeared to him before, and never would again. He might have been in a foreign city, so keenly did he notice every detail. The street was filled at first with drays, loading up with huge boxes from the big warehouses on each side, at the entrances of which men in shirt-sleeves pulled and hauled at the ropes of freight-elevators; then he came to grimy buildings in which was heard the whir of machinery, and he caught a glimpse of men, half stripped, moving backward and forward with strange motions. From across the street came the busy rush of sewing-machines as some one threw up a window and looked out, and a row of girls passed into view with heads bent forward and bodies swaying shoulder to shoulder; beyond were men bending over, pressing, and the steam from the hot irons on the wet cloth poured out around them; and all these toilers seemed no beaten-down wage-earners, but the glad chorus in his own drama of work. Between the factories there began to show neglected narrow brick dwelling-houses, with iron railings and mean, compressed doorways, fronted by garbage-barrels; basement saloons; tiny groceries with bread in the windows and wilted vegetables on the sidewalk, where women with shawled heads were grouped; attenuated furnishing-stores for men, with an ingratiating proprietor in the doorway. In the midst of this district, taking up a salient corner, was the large and ornate building of a patent-medicine concern, towering high into the air, and seeming to preach with lofty benevolence to those below that to be truly respectable and happy you must be rich. Beyond this the scene repeated itself with slight differences—the houses were not so many, and the factories gave place to warehouses again. The influence of those tall masts at the foot of the street began to be felt, although the signs as yet did not speak of oakum or ships’ stores. Among the warehouses, however, was one brick dwelling that attracted Justin’s particular attention, wedged in as it was between the taller buildings on either side. It varied from the others he had seen by the depths of its squalor. The stone steps were defaced and broken; the windows as well as the arched fan-light over the entrance—a relic of bygone days—had only a few jagged pieces of glass left; and a black hallway was revealed to view through the open door. The windows were so near the street that it was easy to see into the front room—an interior so sordid and forbidding that Justin involuntarily paused to view it.