The Girl from Farriss | Page 6

the
life you have chosen? Can you not realize the awful depths of
degradation to which you have come, and the still blacker abyss that
yawns before you if you continue along the downward path? Your
beauty will fade quickly--its lifeblood sapped by the gnawing canker of
vice and shame, and then what will the world hold for you? Naught but
a few horrible years of premature and hideous old age."
"And the way to start a new and better life," replied the girl in a level
voice, "is to advertise my shame upon the front pages of three great
daily newspapers---that's your idea, eh?"
Mr. Pursen flushed, very faintly.
"You misunderstand me entirely," he said. "I abhor as much as any
human being can the necessity which compels so much publicity in
these matters; but it is for the greatest good of the greatest numbers that
I labor--that all of us should labor. If the public does not know of the

terrible conditions which prevail under their very noses, how can we
expect it to rouse itself and take action against these conditions?
"No great reform is ever accomplished except upon the clamorous
demand of the people. The police--in fact all city officials--know of
these conditions; but they will do nothing until they are forced to do it.
Only the people who elect them and whose money pays them can force
them. We must keep the horrors of the underworld constantly before
the voters and tax-payers until they rise and demand that the festering
sore in the very heart of their magnificent city be cured forever.
"What are my personal feelings, or yours, compared with the great
good to the whole community that will result from the successful
fruition of the hopes of those of us who are fighting this great battle
against the devil and his minions? You should rather joyfully embrace
this opportunity to cast off the bonds of hell, and by enlisting with the
legion of righteousness atone for all your sinful past by a
self-sacrificing act in the interest of your fellow man."
The girl laughed, a rather unpleasant, mirthless laugh.
"My 'fellow man'!" She mimicked the preacher's oratorical style. "'It
was my fellow man who made me what I am; it was my fellow man
who has kept me so! it is my fellow man who wished me to blazon my
degradation to the world as a price for aid."
As she spoke, the vernacular of the underworld with its coarse slang
and vile English slipped from her speech like a shabby disguise that has
been discarded, and she spoke again as she had spoken in her other life,
before constant association with beasts and criminals had left their
mark upon her speech as upon her mind and morals; but as the first
flush of indignation passed she slipped again into the now accustomed
rut.
"To hell with you and your fellow men," she said. "Now beat it."
Mr. Pursen's dignity had suffered a most severe shock. He glanced at
the three young men. They were grinning openly. He realized the

humiliating stories they would write for their respective papers. Not at
all the kind of stories he had been picturing to himself, in which the
Rev. Mr. Pursen would shine as a noble Christian reformer laboring for
the salvation of the sinner and the uplift of the community. They would
make horrid jokes of the occurrence, and people would laugh at the Rev.
Mr. Pursen.
A stinging rebuke was upon his lips. He would make this woman
realize the great gulf that lay between the Rev. Mr. Pursen and such as
she. He would let her see the loathing with which a good man viewed
her and her kind; but as he opened his mouth to speak, his better
judgment came to his rescue. The woman would doubtless make a
scene---her sort had a decided penchant for such things--she might even
resort to physical violence.
In either event the resultant newspaper stories would be decidedly
worse than the most glaring exaggerations which the three young men
might concoct from the present unfortunate occurrence.
So the Rev. Mr. Pursen stifled his true emotions, and with a sorrowful
shake of his head turned sadly from his thankless task; and, indeed,
why should a shepherd waste his valuable time upon a worthless sheep
that preferred to stay astray? It was evident that he had lost sight
entirely of the greater good that would follow the conviction of Farris,
for he had not even mentioned the case to the girl or attempted to
encourage her to make the most of this opportunity to bring the man to
justice.
Farris's case was called shortly after the clergyman left the court-room.
The man had an array of witnesses present--to swear that