ly after breakfast I sought the agent. I supposed he would meet
me with downcast eyes and averted head, but he did nothing of the kind;
he extended his hand cordially, and said he was delighted to see me.

"That roof," said I, getting promptly to business, "leaks--well, it's
simply a sieve. And you told me the house was dry."

"So the owner told _me_, sir; of course you can't expect us to inspect
the hundreds of houses we handle in a year."

"Well, however that may be, the owner is mistaken, and he must repair
the roof at once."

The agent looked thoughtful. "If you had wished the landlord to make
necessary repairs, you should have so stipulated in the lease. The lease
you have signed provides that all repairs shall be made at your own
expense."

"Did the landlord draw up the lease?" I asked, fixing my eye severely
upon the agent's liquid orbs. But the agent met my gaze with defiance
and an expression of injured dignity.

"I asked you whether you would have the usual form of lease," said the
agent, "and you replied, 'Certainly.'"

I abruptly left the agent's presence, went to a lumber yard near by, and
asked where I could find the best carpenter in town. He happened to be
on the ground purchasing some lumber, and to him I made known my
troubles, and begged him to hasten to my relief. The carpenter was a man
of great decision of character, and he replied promptly, ciphering on a
card in the meantime:

"No you don't. Every carpenter in town has tried his hand on that roof,
and made it worse than before. The only way to make it tight is to
re-shingle it all over. That'll cost you $67.50, unless the scantling is
too rotten to hold the nails, in which case the job'll cost you $18.75
more. I guess the rafters are strong enough to hold together a year or
two longer."

I made some excuse to escape the carpenter and his dreadful figures, and
he graciously accepted it; doubtless the perfect method in which he did
it was the result of frequent interviews with other wretched beings who
had leased the miserable house which I had taken into my confidence. I
determined to plead with the landlord, whose name I knew, and I asked a
chance acquaintance on the train if he knew where I could find the
proprietor of my house.

"Certainly," said he; "there he is in the opposite seat but one, reading
a religious weekly."

I looked; my heart sank within me, and my body sank into a seat. A
cold-eyed, hatchet-faced man, from whom not