,
stiffenin' up, "but I don't care to have anyone talk to me like----"

"Ah, pickles!" says I. "I'll talk to you a good deal straighter'n that,
before I finish! And you'll take it, too! Why, you great, overgrown kid!
what right have you developin' such a yellow cur streak as that? You!
What you need is to be laid over that chair and paddled, and blamed if I
don't know but I'd better----"

But just here the door creaks, and in drifts the other one. Hanged if I
ever did know what his real name was. I called him Heiney Kirschwasser
for short, though he says he ain't Dutch at all, but Swiss-French; and
that it ain't kirsch that's his failin', but prune brandy. He's the mop
and broom artist for the buildin', some floater the janitor picked up off
the sidewalk a few months back.

He wa'n't exactly a decorative object, this Heiney; but he's kind of a
picturesque ruin. His widest part is around the belt; and from there he
tapers both ways, his shoulders bein' a good eight inches narrower; and
on top of them, with no neck to speak of, is a head shaped like a gum
drop, bald on top, and remindin' you of them mountain peaks you see in
pictures, or a ham set on end.

He has a pair of stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used
as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except
for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face
a look like the ace of spades. His mornin' costume is a faded blue
jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that
Swifty had donated to him.

That's Heiney's description, as near as I can get to it. He comes
shufflin' in, luggin' a scrub pail in one hand, and draggin' a mop in the
other, and he looks about as cheerful as a worn-out hearse that's been
turned into an ash wagon.

"Heiney," says I, "you're just in time. Still lookin' for a nice,
comfortable place to die in, are you?"

Heiney shrugs his shoulders and lifts his eyebrows in a lifeless sort of
style. He does most of his conversin' that way; but he can say more with
a few shrugs than Swifty Joe can by usin' both sides of his mouth. What
Heiney means is that one place is as good as another, and he don't care
how soon he finds it.

"Well, cheer up, Heiney," says I; "for I've just decided to give you the
use of my back room to shuffle off in. I've got comp'ny for you, too.
Here's a friend of mine that feels the same way you do. Mr. Jarvis, Mr.
Heiney Kirschwasser."