shall never be tight
again in this world."

"Oh, Gosh," said Spinks, and sighed profoundly. Then, with a slight
recovery, "do you mean you won't be able to afford it?"

"You can put it that way, if you like."

In time Spinks left him and Rickman was alone. Just as he was
wondering whether or no he would pack his books up before turning in,
there was a soft rap at his door. He said, "Come in" to the rap; and
to himself he said, "Who next?"

It was Mrs. Downey; she glanced round the room, looked at Flossie's
photograph with disapproval, and removed, not without severity, Miss
Bramble's bed-socks from a chair. She had brought no gift; but she sat
down heavily like a woman who has carried a burden about with her all
day, and can carry it no farther. Her features were almost obliterated
with emotion and glazed with tears that she made no effort to remove.

"Mr. Rickman," she said, "do you reelly wish to go, or do you not?"

He looked up surprised. "My dear Mrs. Downey, I don't; believe me. Did
I ever say I did?"

Her face grew brighter and rounder till the very glaze on it made it
shine like a great red sun. "Well, we'd all been wondering, and some
of us said one thing, and some another, and I didn't know what to
think. But if you want to stay perhaps--we can come to some
arrangement." It was the consecrated phrase.

He shook his head.

"Come, I've been thinking it over. You won't be paying less than five
shillings a week for your empty room, perhaps more?"

He would, he said, be paying six shillings.

"There now! And that, with your food, makes sixteen shillings at the
very least."

"Well--it depends upon the food."

"I should think it did depend upon it." Mrs. Downey's face literally
blazed with triumph. She said to herself, "I was right. Mr. Spinks
said he'd take it out of his clothes. Miss Bramble said he'd take it
out of his fire. _I_ said he'd take it out of his dinner."

"Now," she continued, "if you didn't mind moving into the front
attic--it's a good attic--for a time, I could let you 'ave that, _and_
board you, for fifteen shillings a week, or for fourteen, I could, and
welcome. As I seldom let that attic, it would be money in the pocket
to me."

"Come," she went on, well pleased. "I know all about it. Why, Mr.
Blenkinsop, when he first started to write, he lived up there six
months at a time. He had his ups, you may say, and his downs. One year
in the attic and the next on the second floor, ha