Just then Mr. William Wrenn saw and heard the most astounding thing of his life, and became an etemal slave to Tom Poppins.

Tom’s broad face became hard, his voice businesslike.  He shouted at Mrs. Zapp: 

“Beat it or I’ll run you in.  Trouble with you is, you old hag, you don’t appreciate a nice quiet little chap like Wrenn, and you try to bully him—­and him here for years.  Get out or I’ll put you out.  I’m no lamb, and I won’t stand for any of your monkey-shines.  Get out.  This ain’t your room; he’s rented it—­he’s paid the rent—­it’s his room.  Get out!”

Kindly Tom Poppins worked in a cigar-store and was accustomed to talk back to drunken men six feet tall.  His voice was tremendous, and he was fatly immovable; he didn’t a bit mind the fact that Mrs. Zapp was still “glaring speechless.”

But behold an ally to the forlorn lady.  When Theresa, in the hall below, heard Tom, she knew that Mr. Wrenn would room here no more.  She galloped up-stairs and screeched over her mother’s shoulder: 

“You will pick on a lady, will you, you drunken scum—­you—­you cads—­I’ll have you arrested so quick you—­”

“Look here, lady,” said Tom, gently.  “I’m a plain-clothes man, a detective.”  His large voice purred like a tiger-tabby’s.  “I don’t want to run you in, but I will if you don’t get out of here and shut that door.  Or you might go down and call the cop on this block.  He’ll run you in—­for breaking Code 2762 of the Penal Law!  Trespass and flotsam—­that’s what it is!”

Uneasy, frightened, then horrified, Mrs. Zapp swung bulkily about and slammed the door.

Sick, guilty, banished from home though he felt, Mr. Wrenn’s voice quavered, with an attempt at dignity: 

“I’m awful sorry she butted in while you fellows was here.  I don’t know how to apologize”

“Forget it, old man,” rolled out Tom’s bass.  “Come on, let’s go up to Mrs. Arty’s.”

“But, gee! it’s nearly a quarter to eleven.”

“That’s all right.  We can get up there by a little after, and Mrs. Arty stays up playing cards till after twelve.”

“Golly!” Mr. Wrenn agitatedly ejaculated under his breath, as they noisily entered Mrs. Arty’s—­though not noisily on his part.

The parlor door was open.  Mrs. Arty’s broad back was toward them, and she was announcing to James T. Duncan and Miss Proudfoot, with whom she was playing three-handed Five Hundred, “Well, I’ll just bid seven on hearts if you’re going to get so set up.”  She glanced back, nodded, said, “Come in, children,” picked up the “widow,” and discarded with quick twitches of the cards.  The frightened Mr. Wrenn, feeling like a shipwrecked land-lubber, compared this gaming smoking woman unfavorably with the intense respectability of his dear lost patron, Mrs. Zapp.  He sat uneasy till the hand of cards was finished, feeling as though they were only tolerating him.  And Nelly Croubel was nowhere in sight.