with its grand grill of polished steel. The
street widening had shorn off the original areaway of the house, and
the service entrance was now a mere slit in the sidewalk with a steep
stair swallowed up in blackness below. Down this stair old Simeon
Deaves made his way. Evan followed, grinning to himself. It was
certainly an odd way for a man to enter his own home.

"We won't meet Maud this way," Deaves said over his shoulder.

The remark called up a picture of Maud before Evan's mind's eye.

In the basement of the great house they met many servants passing to
and fro, before whom the old man cringed a little. These superior
menials turned an indifferent shoulder to him, but stared hard at Evan.
Evan flushed. Insolence in servants galled his pride. "If I paid
their wages I'd teach them better manners!" he thought.

Somewhere in the bowels of the house, which was full of passages like
all ill-planned dwellings, the old man unlocked a door and led Even
into a vaultlike chamber without a window. Carefully closing the door
behind them he turned on a light.

"This is where I keep all my things," he said innocently. "Maud never
comes down here."

Evan looked around. A strange collection of objects met his view; old
clothes, old newspapers, old hardware, in extraordinary disorder. It
was like the junk room in an old farmhouse. The walls were covered
with shelves heaped with objects; old clocks, broken china ornaments,
empty cans, pieces of rope, bundles of rags. On the floor besides,
were boxes and trunks, some with covers, some without; the latter
overflowing with rubbish. Evan wondered whimsically if the closed
boxes were filled with shining gold eagles. It would be quite in
keeping, he thought. But on second thoughts, no. Your modern miser is
too sensible of the advantages of safe deposit vaults.

Deaves found a place for his bundle of old clothes, and seeing Evan
looking around, he said with his noiseless laugh, which was no more
than a facial contortion:

"You never can tell when a thing will be wanted."

Turning his back on Evan he rummaged for a long time among his shelves.
Evan was somewhat at a loss, for his host appeared to have forgotten
him. He was considering quietly leaving the place when the old man
finally turned around. He had a small object in his hand which he made
as if to offer Evan, but drew it back suddenly and examined it
lovingly. It was a pen-knife out of his collection.