I only wish that she would bring a little soap and water and perfumery into Wheeler Street next time she comes; for some people there may be smothering in the filth which they abhor as much as she, but from which they cannot, like her, run away.
[Illustration: WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON] Many years after my escape from Wheeler Street I returned to see if the place was as bad as I remembered it.

I found the narrow street grown even narrower, the sidewalk not broad enough for two to walk abreast, the gutter choked with dust and refuse, the dingy row of tenements on either side unspeakably gloomy.

I discovered, what I had not realized before, that Wheeler Street was a crooked lane connecting a corner saloon on Shawmut Avenue with a block of houses of ill repute on Corning Street.

It had been the same in my day, but I had not understood much, and I lived unharmed.
On this later visit I walked slowly up one side of the street, and down the other, remembering many things.

It was eleven o'clock in the evening, and sounds of squabbling coming through doors and windows informed my experienced ear that a part of Wheeler Street was going to bed.