the draying business.
He left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two
children, that stayed four months; and back of them was old Mr. Doyle,
whose sons paid for him. He kept the room six months. That goes back a
year, sir, and further I do not remember."

He thanked her and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The
essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette
had departed. In its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house
furniture, of atmosphere in storage.

The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow,
singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets
into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly into
every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut he
turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself
gratefully upon the bed.

* * * * * *

It was Mrs. McCool's night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched
it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where
house-keepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.

"I rented out my third floor, back, this evening," said Mrs. Purdy,
across a fine circle of foam. "A young man took it. He went up to bed
two hours ago."

"Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma'am?" said Mrs. McCool, with intense
admiration. "You do be a wonder for rentin' rooms of that kind. And
did ye tell him, then?" she concluded in a husky whisper, laden with
mystery.

"Rooms," said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, "are furnished for to
rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool."

"'Tis right ye are, ma'am; 'tis by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have
the rale sense for business, ma'am. There be many people will rayjict
the rentin' of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin'
in the bed of it."

"As you say, we has our living to be making," remarked Mrs. Purdy.

"Yis, ma'am; 'tis true. 'Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay
out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be
killin' herself wid the gas--a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy,
ma'am."

"She'd a-been called handsome, as you say," said Mrs. Purdy, assenting
but critical, "but for that mole she had a-growin' by her left eyebrow.
Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool."

THE BRIEF DEBUT OF TILDY

If you do not know Bogle's Chop House and Family Restaurant it is your
loss. For if you are