little more than
sweatshops, wore an empty, menacing, "Sunday" look, and the faint
November sunlight glistened on dirty pavements where children were making
a semblance of play. Monotonous rows of red houses succeeded one another,
some pushed forward, others thrust back behind little plots of stamped
earth. Into one of these I turned. It seemed a little cleaner, better
kept, less sordid than the others. I pulled the bell, and presently the
door was opened by a woman whose arms were bare to the elbow. She wore a
blue-checked calico apron that came to her throat, but the apron was
clean, and her firm though furrowed face gave evidences of recent
housewifely exertions. Her eyes had the strange look of the cheerfulness
that is intimately acquainted with sorrow. She did not seem surprised at
seeing me.

"I have come to ask about Mr. Krebs," I told her.

"Oh, yes," she said, "there's been so many here this morning already.
It's wonderful how people love him, all kinds of people. No, sir, he
don't seem to be in any pain. Two gentlemen are up there now in his room,
I mean."

She wiped her arms, which still bore traces of soap-suds, and then, with
a gesture natural and unashamed, lifted the corner of her apron to her
eyes.

"Do you think I could see him--for a moment?" I asked. "I've known him
for a long time."

"Why, I don't know," she said, "I guess so. The doctor said he could see
some, and he wants to see his friends. That's not strange--he always did.
I'll ask. Will you tell me your name?"

I took out a card. She held it without glancing at it, and invited me in.

I waited, unnerved and feverish, pulsing, in the dark and narrow hall
beside the flimsy rack where several coats and hats were hung. Once
before I had visited Krebs in that lodging-house in Cambridge long ago
with something of the same feelings. But now they were greatly
intensified. Now he was dying....

The woman was descending.

"He says he wants to see you, sir," she said rather breathlessly, and I
followed her. In the semi-darkness of the stairs I passed the three men
who had been with Krebs, and when I reached the open door of his room he
was alone. I hesitated just a second, swept by the heat wave that follows
sudden shyness, embarrassment, a sense of folly it is too late to avert.

Krebs was propped up with pillows.

"Well, this is good of you," he said, and reached out his hand across the
spread. I took it, and sat down beside the shiny oak