He wuz very particular about her havin' air of the very purest and best
kind there wuz made, and the same with vittles and clothes, etc., etc.,
etc.

Wall, while he wuz a-goin' on so about pure air and the values and
necessities of it, I couldn't help thinkin' of what Barzelia had told me
about that big property of hisen in the Eastern city where he had left
The Little Maid.

Here, in the very lowest part of the city, he owned hull streets of
tenement housen, miserable old rotten affairs, down in stiflin' alleys,
and courts, breeders of disease, and crime, and death.

At first some on 'em fell into his hands by a exchange of property, and
he found they paid so well, that he directed his agent to buy up a lot
of 'em.

Barzelia had told me all about 'em, she was jest as enthusiastick about
what she didn't like as what she did; she said the money got in that
way, by housin' the poor in such horrible pestilental places, seemed
jest like makin' a bargain with Death. Rentin' housen to him to make
carnival in.

And while he wuz talkin' to such great length, and with such a satisfied
and comfortable look onto his face, about the vital necessities of pure
air and beautiful surroundin's, in order to make children well and
happy, my thoughts kept a-roamin', and I couldn't help it. Down from the
lovely spot where The Little Maid wuz, down, down, into the dretful
places that Barzelia had told me about. Where squalor, and crime, and
disease, and death walked hand in hand, gatherin' new victims at every