in the necks of spelter vases, a crimson Jap umbrella hung
opened beneath the chandelier, and each globe had a shade of yellow
silk.
March, when he had recovered his self-command a little in the presence
of the agglomeration, comforted himself by calling the bric-a-brac
Jamescracks, as if this was their full name.
The disrespect he was able to show the whole apartment by means of this
joke strengthened him to say boldly to the superintendent that it was
altogether too small; then he asked carelessly what the rent was.
"Two hundred and fifty."
The Marches gave a start, and looked at each other.
"Don't you think we could make it do?" she asked him, and he could
see that she had mentally saved five hundred dollars as the difference
between the rent of their house and that of this flat. "It has some very
pretty features, and we could manage to squeeze in, couldn't we?"
"You won't find another furnished flat like it for no two-fifty a month
in the whole city," the superintendent put in.
They exchanged glances again, and March said, carelessly, "It's too
small."
"There's a vacant flat in the Herodotus for eighteen hundred a year,
and one in the Thucydides for fifteen," the superintendent suggested,
clicking his keys together as they sank down in the elevator; "seven
rooms and bath."
"Thank you," said March; "we're looking for a furnished flat."
They felt that the superintendent parted from them with repressed
sarcasm.
"Oh, Basil, do you think we really made him think it was the smallness
and not the dearness?"
"No, but we saved our self-respect in the attempt; and that's a great
deal."
"Of course, I wouldn't have taken it, anyway, with only six rooms, and
so high up. But what prices! Now, we must be very circumspect about the
next place."
It was a janitress, large, fat, with her arms wound up in her apron,
who received them there. Mrs. March gave her a succinct but perfect
statement of their needs. She failed to grasp the nature of them, or
feigned to do so. She shook her head, and said that her son would show
them the flat. There was a radiator visible in the narrow hall, and
Isabel tacitly compromised on steam heat without an elevator, as the
flat was only one flight up. When the son appeared from below with a
small kerosene hand-lamp, it appeared that the flat was unfurnished, but
there was no stopping him till he had shown it in all its impossibility.
When they got safely away from it and
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