Jacob A. Riis 1849–1914. The Battle with the Slum. 1902.
Page 442
| “Them police fellows,” she said, with the least touch of resentment in her gentle voice, “they might take my things and sell them to buy cigars to smoke.” I suspect it was the cigar that grated harshly. It was ever to her a vulgar slur on her beloved pipe. In truth, the mere idea of Mrs. Ben Wah smoking a cigar rouses in me impatient resentment. Without her pipe she was not herself. I see her yet, stuffing it with approving forefinger, on the Christmas day when I had found her with tobacco pouch empty, and pocket to boot, and nodding the quaint comment from her corner, “It’s no disgrace to be poor, but it’s sometimes very inconvenient.” |
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| Mrs. Ben Wah. |
| There was something in the little attic room that spoke of the coming change louder than the warning paper. A half-finished mat, with its bundle of rags put carefully aside; the thirsty potato-vine on the fire-escape, which reached appealingly from its soap-box toward the window, as if in wondering |