irit of
the house, herself. A full week had he been there before his fellow
lodgers, self-constituted into a Committee on Membership, took his case
under consideration in full session upon the front steps. None had had
speech with him, but it was known that he kept irregular hours.

"What's his job: that's what I'd like to know," demanded in a tone of
challenge, young Wickert, a man of the world who clerked in the
decorative department of a near-by emporium.

"Newsboy, I guess," said Lambert, the belated art-student of thirty-odd
with a grin. "He's always got his arms full of papers when he comes in."

"And he sits at his table clipping pieces out of them and arranging them
in piles," volunteered little Mrs. Bolles, the trained nurse on the top
floor. "I've seen him as I go past."

"Help-wanted ads," suggested Wickert, who had suffered experience in
that will-o'-the-wisp chase.

"Then he hasn't got a job," deduced Mr. Hainer, a heavy man of heavy
voice and heavy manner, middle-aged, a small-salaried accountant.

"Maybe he's got money," suggested Lambert.

"Or maybe he's a dead beat; he looks on the queer," opined young
Wickert.

"He has a very fine and sensitive face. I think he has been ill." The
opinion came from a thin, quietly dressed woman of the early worn-out
period of life, who sat a little apart from the others. Young Wickert
started a sniff, but suppressed it, for Miss Westlake was held locally
in some degree of respect, as being "well-connected" and having
relatives who called on her in their own limousines, though seldom.

"Anybody know his name?" asked Lambert.

"Barnacle," said young Wickert wittily. "Something like that, anyway.
Bannsocker, maybe. Guess he's some sort of a Swede."

"Well, I only hope he doesn't clear out some night with his trunk on his
back and leave poor Mrs. Brashear to whistle," declared Mrs. Bolles
piously.

The worn face of the landlady, with its air of dispirited motherliness,
appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Banneker is a _gentleman_," she said.

"Gentleman" from Mrs. Brashear, with that intonation, meant one who, out
of or in a job, paid his room rent. The new lodger had earned the title
by paying his month in advance. Having settled that point, she withdrew,
followed by the two other women. Lambert, taking a floppy hat from the
walnut rack in the hall, went his way, leaving young Wickert and Mr.
Hainer to support the discussion, which they did in tones less discreet