"What is the trouble?" asked Peter, as they walked.
"We don't know, sir. They were all took yesterday, and two are dead
already." The man wiped the tears from his eyes with his shirtsleeve,
smearing the red brick dust with which it was powdered, over his face.
"You've had a doctor?"
"Not till this morning. We didn't think it was bad at first."
"What is your name?"
"Blackett, sir--Jim Blackett."
Peter began to see daylight. He remembered both a Sally and Matilda
Blackett.--That was probably "Missy."
A walk of six blocks transferred them to the centre of the tenement
district. Two flights of stairs brought them to the Blackett's rooms. On
the table of the first, which was evidently used both as a kitchen and
sitting-room, already lay a coffin containing a seven-year-old girl.
Candles burned at the four corners, adding to the bad air and heat. In
the room beyond, in bed, with a tired-looking woman tending her, lay a
child of five. Wan and pale as well could be, with perspiration standing
in great drops on the poor little hot forehead, the hand of death, as it
so often does, had put something into the face never there before.
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