threw off a series of little white
puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
laughter interrupted by a cough.

But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
hotel bedroom--cheerless, lamentable.

The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all
the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side
of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
clean smell of new soap in the air.

But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
remained upon the top shelf of the closet.

This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.

It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
proprietors of the apartm