newspaper-readers, and then they will fall back on the old saying
that after all it is only a result of human nature that such
things happen--they always have happened and always will--that old
line of talk."

"That sort of thing is NOT a result of human nature," returned
Kennedy earnestly. "It's a System. I mean to say that if it should
turn out to be connected with the vice investigations of Carton,
and not a case of aphasia, such a disappearance you would find to
be due to the persistent, cunning, and unprincipled exploitation
of young girls.

"No, Walter, it is not that women are weak or that men are
inherently vicious. That doesn't account for a case like this.
Then, too, some mawkish people to-day are fond of putting the
whole evil on low wages as a cause. It isn't that--alone. It isn't
even lack of education or of moral training. Human nature is not
so bad in the mass as some good people think. No, don't you, as a
reporter, see it? It is big business, in its way, that Carton is
fighting--big business in the commercialized ruin of girls, such,
perhaps, as Betty Blackwell--a vicious system that enmeshes even
those who are its tools. I'm glad if I can have a chance to help
smash it.

"Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do, just so that we can
start this thing with a clear understanding of what it amounts to.
I want you to look up just what the situation is. I know there is
an army of 'vanishers' in New York. I want to know something about
them in the mass. Can't you dig up something from your Star
connections?"