in this proceeding his unique
characteristics already referred to--what theosophists would call his
Karma--began unmistakably to assert themselves, for it was in the house
he eventually selected that this sad tale took place.

There are no "diggings" in American cities. The alternatives for small
incomes are grim enough--rooms in a boarding-house where meals are
served, or in a room-house where no meals are served--not even
breakfast. Rich people live in palaces, of course, but Jim had nothing
to do with "sich-like." His horizon was bounded by boarding-houses and
room-houses; and, owing to the necessary irregularity of his meals and
hours, he took the latter.

It was a large, gaunt-looking place in a side street, with dirty windows
and a creaking iron gate, but the rooms were large, and the one he
selected and paid for in advance was on the top floor. The landlady
looked gaunt and dusty as the house, and quite as old. Her eyes were
green and faded, and her features large.

"Waal," she twanged, with her electrifying Western drawl, "that's the
room, if you like it, and that's the price I said. Now, if you want it,
why, just say so; and if you don't, why, it don't hurt me any."

Jim wanted to shake her, but he feared the clouds of long-accumulated
dust in her clothes, and as the price and size of the room suited him,
he decided to take it.

"Anyone else on this floor?" he asked.

She looked at him queerly out of her faded eyes before she answered.

"None of my guests ever put such questions to me before," she said; "but
I guess you're different. Why, there's no one at all but an old gent
that's stayed here every bit of five years. He's over thar," pointing
to the end of the passage.

"Ah! I see," said Shorthouse feebly. "So I'm alone up here?"

"Reckon you are, pretty near," she twanged out, ending the conversation
abruptly by turning her back on her new "guest," and going slowly and
deliberately downstairs.

The newspaper work kept Shorthouse out most of the night. Three times a
week he got home at 1 a.m., and three times at 3 a.m. The room proved
comfortable enough, and he paid for a second week. His unusual hours had
so far prevented his meeting any inmates of the house, and not a sound
had been heard from the "old gent" who shared the floor with him. It
seemed a very quiet house.

One night, about the middle of the second week, he came home tired after
a long day's work. The lamp that usually stood all ni