I remember the first look I took at the cubbyhole on the top floor just about wound matters up. The walls is papered terrible red, or maybe this rabbit hutch kind of blushed when the landlady called it a room. A faded rag carpet on the floor, a white-enameled cot like you get in the hospital, a chair not even fit to use as a weapon, a bureau which I bet come off the Ark, a picture of Theodore Roosevelt with the compliments of the New York "Blade," a cartoon of a vase of roses in a gilt frame, a window with a wide crack in the upper pane of glass—or else it was grinning at me: "Not so good, eh?"
Still, everything is as clean and neat as a new pin. But I can't sleep in a new pin. I'm looking for a out, when Mrs. Willcox, the kind of silvery-haired, sweet-faced old lady your grandmother was or is, takes things in hand.
"This here's seven and a half dollars a week with board—ahump—in advance," she says, and looks at me. I guess she must of heard me gulping. I had
