He found a lunch room around the corner on Linden Street and, probably more because he was really hungry than because the food was especially good, made an excellent repast, with an evening paper propped up against the vinegar cruet. It was nearly eight when he wandered back to his lodging through the warm, quiet evening. Most of the stores on Main Street were closed, but a few windows still threw floods of yellow radiance across the brick sidewalks. Doorsteps held family groups, quite as if Summer had not gone, and children played along the pavement. An old-fashioned lantern with a gas jet sizzling inside it hung above the door of Number 200 and threw a wavering, uncertain light on the four creaking steps. As Ira passed into the hall the door of the tailor’s shop was open and he saw a little hunchbacked man of uncertain age and nationality working steadily and swiftly over a pressing board. On each floor a dim gaslight flickered, but for most of the distance each flight was in darkness and he made his way upwards warily, a guiding hand on the banister rail.
Halfway up the second flight he heard Mrs. Magoon’s voice. It sounded querulous, even a trifle resentful. The next moment another voice broke in angrily, and Ira reached the third floor and viewed an astounding scene. In the doorway of his room, seated determinedly on a small trunk, with a bag on his knees, was a boy of perhaps sixteen. In front of him stood Mrs. Magoon, her hands wrapped in her apron. At the sound of his footsteps both actors in the little drama staged on his doorsill turned their heads and regarded him, the boy with an expression of dogged defiance and Mrs. Magoon with very evident relief.
CHAPTER IV
FOUND – A ROOMMATE
“Now I guess you’ll behave yourself,” exclaimed the landlady triumphantly. “Here’s the young man that’s taken the room.”
“He hasn’t any right to it,” declared the boy on the trunk, gripping the bag on his knees more firmly. “You gave me the refusal of it! I told you I’d be back! It’s my room, and I mean to keep it!”
Ira looked inquiringly at Mrs. Magoon, but she silently referred him to the claimant in the doorway.
“What’s wrong?” Ira asked of the latter.
“Why, I came here this afternoon and looked at this room and I asked this – this lady if she’d give me the refusal of it until evening and she said she would. I agreed to come back in any case and say whether I’d take it or not. And now, when I send my trunk here, she tells me she’s rented it to you!”
“I gave him no refusal,” exclaimed Mrs. Magoon irately. “He said he’d be back, yes, but he didn’t know whether he wanted it or didn’t want it. And I can’t be losing the chance to rent my rooms while he’s making up his mind.”
“Well, if you didn’t have a refusal,” said Ira mildly, “I don’t see what claim you have. I found the room for rent and took it this afternoon, and paid two weeks in advance. I’m sorry, but I guess you’ll have to look somewhere else.”
“I have looked!” cried the other. “There aren’t any rooms left. This is all there is. I’ve been all over the crazy place.”
“Oh, I guess you can find one tomorrow,” said Ira soothingly. “Why don’t you get a lodging for tonight somewhere and then start fresh in the morning? I’ve got a list of houses here – ”
“I’ve been all through the list. Everyone’s full up. Anyway, this is my room, and I mean to have it. She did give me the refusal of it, and she knows plaguey well she did!”
“The idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Magoon in shrill tones. “Calling me a liar to my face, are you? If you don’t get right out of here this very minute I’ll call a policeman, I will so!”
“Wait a minute,” counselled Ira. “He didn’t mean it that way. Now I tell you what we’ll do.” He glanced across the corridor to where a door had just opened to emit a large youth who was now regarding them with his hands in his pockets and a broad smile on his face. “You let this chap and me talk it over quietly, Mrs. Magoon. We’ll settle it between us. There’s no reason to get excited about it, is there? Just you go on down, ma’am, and it’ll be all right.”
“There’s only one way it can be settled,” replied the landlady irately, “and that’s for him to take himself and his trunk out of my house!”
“But there’s no hurry, Mrs. Magoon. Besides, we’re disturbing the others with all this racket. Shove that trunk inside, please, and we’ll close the door first of all.”
Mrs. Magoon grunted, hesitated and finally went grumbling off down the stairs, and Ira, taking affairs into his own hands, pushed the small trunk out of the way of the door, its owner grudgingly vacating his strategic position atop, and closed the portal, to the disappointment of the neighbour across the way.
“Now,” said Ira pleasantly, “sit down and be comfortable. Try the armchair. What’s your name? Mine’s Rowland.”
“Mine’s Nead,” replied the other, not very amiably. “Names haven’t anything to do with it, though.”
“Just wanted to know what to call you. Now, honest-to-goodness, Nead, did Mrs. Magoon say she’d hold this room until you had decided?”
“She did! If it’s the last word I ever utter – ”
“All right! And, if you don’t mind telling me, how much were you to pay for it?”
“Thirteen dollars and a half a month.”
Ira did some mental calculating and smiled. “That’s about three dollars a week, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re certain that was the price?”
“Of course I’m certain. Three dollars was all I wanted to pay, and I told her so. She wanted four at first. Four dollars for this – this old poverty-stricken attic!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be hard on it,” said Ira pleasantly. “I like it pretty well.”
“But it isn’t yours! Now you look here, Boland – ”
“Rowland. And don’t let’s have any melodrama, please. We can come to a settlement if we don’t shout, I guess. What you agreed to and what Mrs. Magoon agreed to is no business of mine. That’s between you two. She says the room is mine. You say it’s yours. I’ve got it!”
“You haven’t any right – ”
“Well, there’s the right of possession,” chuckled Ira. “Mind you, I’m inclined to believe your account of what took place, because – well, I’m beginning to doubt Mrs. Thingamabob’s – er – memory. But I think you left it pretty late to decide, Nead. If I’d been Mrs. Magoon I’d have considered myself released from that refusal by six o’clock; by seven, anyway. You couldn’t have got here until half-past, I guess.”
“I had to get something to eat and then find a man to fetch my trunk – ”
“Yes, but you could have dropped around before and told her you’d take it. You see, Nead, if you hadn’t wanted it, and she had stood by her bargain until nearly eight, she might not have rented it at all. There’s that to consider.”
“Oh, you make me tired! You talk like a – like a lawyer! She said I could have the room and I’ve come for it and that’s all there is to it!”
“Well, what about me?” inquired Ira mildly.
“You can find another one. You can do what you told me to do. If you think it’s so easy, just take a try at it!”
“If I thought you really had a right to this room I’d do it,” answered Ira, “but I don’t. At least, not a convincing one. Tell you, though, what I will do, Nead. I’ll get Mrs. Magoon to fix up some sort of