“This is where I hang out,” said Signor Orlando cheerfully.  “As the poet says, there is no place like home.”

If this had been true it was not much to be regretted, since the home in question was far from attractive.

Signor Orlando rang the bell, and a stout woman of German aspect answered the call.

“So you haf come back, Herr Orlando,” said this lady.  “I hope you haf brought them two weeks’ rent you owe me.”

“All in good time, Mrs. Schlessinger,” said Orlando.  “But you see I have brought some one with me.”

“Is he your bruder now?” asked the lady.

“No, he is not, unfortunately for me.  His name is——­”

Orlando coughed.

“Philip Brent,” suggested our hero.

“Just so—­Philip Brent.”

“I am glad to see Mr. Prent,” said the landlady.

“And is he an actor like you, Signor Orlando?”

“Not yet.  We don’t know what may happen.  But he comes on business, Mrs. Schlessinger.  He wants a room.”

The landlady brightened up.  She had two rooms vacant, and a new lodger was a godsend.

“I vill show Mr. Prent what rooms I haf,” she said.  “Come up-stairs, Mr. Prent.”

The good woman toiled up the staircase panting, for she was asthmatic, and Phil followed.  The interior of the house was as dingy as the exterior, and it was quite dark on the second landing.

She threw open the door of a back room, which, being lower than the hall, was reached by a step.

“There!” said she, pointing to the faded carpet, rumpled bed, and cheap pine bureau, with the little six-by-ten looking-glass surmounting it.  “This is a peautiful room for a single gentleman, or even for a man and his wife.”

“My friend, Mr. Brent, is not married,” said Signor Orlando waggishly.

Phil laughed.

“You will have your shoke, Signor Orlando,” said Mrs. Schlessinger.

“What is the price of this room?” asked Phil.

“Three dollars a week, Mr. Prent, I ought to have four, but since you are a steady young gentleman——­”

“How does she know that?” Phil wondered.

“Since you are a steady young gentleman, and a friend of Signor Orlando, I will not ask you full price.”

“That is more than I can afford to pay,” said Phil, shaking his head.

“I think you had better show Mr. Brent the hall bedroom over mine,” suggested the signor.

Mrs. Schlessinger toiled up another staircase, the two new acquaintances following her.  She threw open the door of one of those depressing cells known in New York as a hall bedroom.  It was about five feet wide and eight feet long, and was nearly filled up by a cheap bedstead, covered by a bed about two inches thick, and surmounted at the head by a consumptive-looking pillow.  The paper was torn from the walls in places.  There was one rickety chair, and a wash-stand which bore marks of extreme antiquity.