nde hair, a long
nose, and an incorrigible smile that spread to the furthest confines of
his face. To quote himself, he was a bum artist and a squarehead. He
took people at their own valuation and was consequently a universal
favourite.

"Carmen rented her back parlour this afternoon," he was saying--Carmen
being their own moniker for their landlady Miss Carmelita Sisson. "To
a female. What do you know about it? Carmen hates 'em round the
house. Too nosey, she says. But the room's been vacant since spring,
and roomers in summertime are as scarce as snowballs. So she succumbed.

"Haven't seen her yet--I mean the new roomer, but my hope and my prayer
is that she's a looker. I think she is because Carmen sniffed. Does
our Carmen love the beautiful of her sex? She does--not! She's a
singing-teacher, Madame Squallerina, Carmen called her, with the rare
wit for which she is famed. Already moved in with her piano and all.
I heard her moving round, but the door was closed. I'm afraid she's
not going to be sociable. Hell! the parlor floor always looks down on
the attic! That's a joke in case you don't know it; parlor floor
looking down on the attic!

"Wish I could think of a good excuse to knock on her door. It 'ud be a
stunt, wouldn't it, to raise an alarm of fire in this old tinder-box.
Say, if there's ever a fire I bags the new roomer to save--that is
until I get a look at her. If it's over a hundred and fifty, I'll give
the job to you, Strong-arm."

This failed to draw a smile from Evan.

"Say, you're as lively as the dressing-room of a defeated team. Wot
th' hell's the matter? Come on out and see a movie. I'll blow."

"I'm off pictures," said Evan. "Go on yourself. Maybe you'll meet
Squallerina on the stairs. Take her."

"You've said it," said Charley. "I'm off."

The gas made the room hot, and Evan turned it out. The instant he did
so, he became aware of the moonlight outside, and he went and rested
his elbows on the sill in his customary attitude.

The moon herself was behind the house, but the Square beneath his
window was mantled in a tender bloom of light. As every painter knows,
moonlight is most beautiful when the moon herself is out of the
picture. By moonlight the dejected old trees of the Square were shapes
of perfect beauty, the grass was overlaid with a delicate scarf of
light; the very figures on the benches were as strangely still as if
the moon had laid a spell on them.