ent house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
scene.

But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
misery!

In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
bric-a-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_
which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
pleasure. Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
o'clock stroll on Kearne