arters. The waiter turned up a still narrower twisting stairway. As
they neared the top Ned could see a dim light coming through an open
doorway.

The room to which he was thus introduced was some fifteen feet long and
as many broad, on the floor. Two gabled windows, back and front, made
with the centre line of the low-sloping ceiling a Greek cross effect. A
single candle, burning on a backless chair by one of the windows, threw
its flickering light on the choked room-full of old-fashioned iron
bedsteads, bedded in make-shift manner, six in all, four packed against
the wall opposite the door at which the stairs ended and one on each side
of the window whereby was the light. On one of these latter beds a
bearded man lay stretched, only partly undressed; on its edge sat a youth
in his shirt. Although it was so late they were talking.

"Not gone to bed yet?" asked the waiter.

"Hullo, Jack!" replied the youth. "Aren't you coming to bed yet?"

"A gentleman of Jack's profession," said the bearded man, whose liquorous
voice proclaimed how he had put in his evening, "doesn't require to go to
bed at all. 'Gad, that's very good. You understand me?" He referred his
wit to the youth. He spoke with the drawling hesitation of the English
"swell."

"I understand you," replied the youth, in a respectful voice that had
acquired its tone in the English shires.

"I don't get much chance whether I require it or not," remarked Jack,
with an American accentuation, proceeding to make up the other bed by the
light. There was nothing on the grimy mattress but a grimy blanket, so he
brought a couple of fairly clean sheets from a bed in the opposite corner
and spread them dexterously.

"Have we the pleasure of more company, Jack?" enquired the broken-down
swell. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the English lad.

"This gentleman's going to stay," replied Jack, putting the sheet over
the caseless pillow.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said the swell to Ned, upon this
introduction. "We can't offer you a chair but you're welcome to a seat on
the bed. If you can't offer a man wine give him whisky, and if you
haven't got whisky offer him the best you've got." This last to the
youth. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the youth. "I understand you perfectly."

"Thanks," replied Ned. "But it won't hurt to stand for a minute. There
ain't much room to stand though, is there?"

His head nearly touched the c