Part 29 (1/2)

Wait--understand?” With that I skips upstairs, and explains the mystery of our bein' mobbed. ”It's a whiskered freak on the top floor they're after,” says I. ”Swifty, run up and get that Ham and Eggs gent. I'm yearnin' for speech with him. I don't know what this is all about; but I'll soon see, and block any encores.”

”Quite right,” says Mr. Hubbard. ”This is all extremely annoying. Such a rabble!”

”Positively disgusting!” adds Pinckney. ”A crowd of smelly foreigners!

Shorty, you should put a stop to this.”

”Trust me,” says I. ”Ah, here we have the guilty party!” and in comes Swifty towin' Eggleston K. by the collar. No wonder Eggy is some agitated, after bein' hauled down two flights in that fas.h.i.+on!

”Well,” says I, as Swifty stands him up in front of us. ”Who are your outside friends, and why?”

”My--my friends?” says he. ”I--I don't understand. And I must protest, you know, against this manner of----”

”Gwan!” says I. ”I'm doin' all the protestin' here. And I want to know what you mean by collectin' such a crowd of steerage junk that my customers can't get in without bein' mobbed? Howled for us to take their pictures, and mentioned your name.”

”Oh! Pictures!” and Eggy seems to get the key. ”Why, I--I'd forgotten.”

”Can you beat that?” says I. ”He'd forgotten! Well, they hadn't. But what's the idea, anyway? Collectin' fam'ly portraits of prominent gunmen, or what?”

”It--it's my way of getting material for my work,” says Eggleston. ”You see, through some friends in a settlement house, I get to know these people. I take snapshots of them for nothing. They like to send the pictures back home, you know, and I can use some of them myself.”

”In the book?” says I.

”Perhaps,” says Eggy, blus.h.i.+n'. ”I had promised a few of them to take some studio pictures if they would come up to-day.”

”And they didn't do a thing but bring all their friends,” says I. ”Must be fifty of them down there. You'll have a thick book before you get through.”

”I beg pardon,” puts in Mr. Hubbard, leanin' forward int'rested, ”but may I ask the nature of the book?”

”It--it's to be about our foreign-born citizens,” says Eggy.

”Ah, I see!” says J. Q. ”Pointing out the evils of unrestricted immigration, I presume?”

”Well--er--not exactly,” says Eggy.

”Then I should advise you to make it so,” says Mr. Hubbard. ”In fact, if the subject were well handled, and the case put strongly enough to meet my views, I think I could a.s.sure its immediate publication.”

”Oh, would you?” says Eggleston, real eager. ”But--but what are your views as to our treatment of aliens?”

”My programme is quite simple,” says Mr. Hubbard. ”I would stop all immigration at once, absolutely. Then I would deport all persons of foreign birth who had not become citizens.”

Eggy gasped. ”But--but that would be unjust!” says he. ”Why, it would be monstrous! Surely, you are not in earnest?”

Mr. Hubbard's eyelids narrow, his jaw stiffens, and he emphasizes each word by tappin' his knee. ”I'd like to see it done to-morrow,” says he.

”Check this flood of immigration, and you solve half of our economic and industrial problems. Too long we have allowed this country to be a general dumping ground for the sc.u.m of Europe. Everyone admits that.”

”If you please,” says Eggy, runnin' his fingers through his beard nervous, ”I could not agree to that. On the contrary, my theory is that we owe a great deal of our progress and our success to the foreign born.”

”Oh, indeed!” remarks Mr. Hubbard, cold and sharp. ”And you mean to try to prove that in your book?”

”Something like that,” admits Eggy.