iture.

Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
"You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he
pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down
in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
would you be?"

"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go
ahead, _I_ don't care." He parted from his old home with as much
indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.

Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.

At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His
indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and sof