ngman.

By the end of the week I was obliged to hunt for another boarding-house
as well as continue the search for work. My little bedroom under the
skylight, and three meals per day of none too plentiful and wretchedly
cooked food, required the deposit of five dollars a week in advance.
With but a few dollars left in my purse, and the prospect of work still
far off, nothing in the world seemed so desirable as that I might be
able to pass the remainder of my days in Miss Jamison's house, and that
I might be able to breakfast indefinitely in her dark basement
dining-room.

Sunday morning came around again. I had been a week in the city, and was
apparently no nearer to earning a livelihood than the day I started out.
I had gained a little experience, but it had been at the cost of nearly
five precious dollars, all spent in street-car fare and postage-stamps;
of miles and miles of walking through muddy, slushy streets; and at the
sacrifice of my noon lunch, which I could have had done up for me at the
boarding-house without extra charge, but which my silly vanity did not
allow me to carry around under my arm.

Sunday morning again, and still no Miss Plympton. She was under
discussion when I reached the breakfast-table. The lady with the
cataract and her friend were speaking of how well she always dressed,
and one of them wondered how she managed to do it, since she had no
visible means of support. Dr. Perkins didn't seem to relish the turn the
conversation had taken, and suddenly he fell completely out of it. But
the gossips clacked on regardless, until they were brought to a
standstill by a peremptory exclamation from the end of the table.

"Excuse me," spoke up the doctor, dryly, "but I'll have to ask you to
change the subject. You are talking about a young lady of whom you know
absolutely nothing!"

The scandal-mongers finished breakfast in silence and soon shuffled away
in their bedroom slippers.

"Old cats!" said the doctor, energetically. "Boarding-house life breeds
them. A boarding-house is no place for anybody. It perverts all the
natural instincts, mental, moral, and physical. You'd hardly believe it,
but I've lived in boarding-houses so long that I can't digest really
wholesome food any more."

When at last we rose to go, he handed me a card upon which I later read
this astonishing inscription in heavy black type: "PAINLESS PERKINS";
and, in smaller type underneath, the information that the extracting or