“I wanted it.”

“Yes, but who for?”

“For myself.”

“What!  To live in?”

“I hope so—­I certainly do not want it to die in.”  A quiet smile trembled for an instant on his lips, momentarily lightening an expression of extreme reserve.

“You won’t do no dyin’ if I can help it—­but ye don’t know what kind a room it is.  It’s not mor’n twice as big as that wagon.  And ye want it for yourself?  Well, ye don’t look it!”

“I am sorry.”

“And it’s only five dollars a week, and all ye want to eat—­all we can give ye.”

“I am glad it is not more.  I may not be able to pay that for very long, but I will pay the first week in advance, and I will pay the next one in the same way and leave when my money is gone.  Can I see the room?”

Again she studied him.  This time it was the gray waistcoat, the well-ironed shirt and collar, English scarf, and the blackthorn stick which he carried balanced in the hollow of his arm.  If he had been in overalls she would not have hesitated an instant, but she saw that this man was not of her class, nor of any other class about her.  “I don’t know whether ye can or not,” came the frank reply.  “I’m thinkin’ about it.  You don’t look as if ye were flat broke.  If you’re goin’ to take me room, I don’t want to be watchin’ ye, and I won’t!  Once we know ye’re clean and decent, ye can have the run of the place and welcome to it.  We had one dead-beat here last month, and that’s enough.  Out with it now!  How is it that a”—­she hesitated an instant—­“yes, a gentleman like you wants to live over an express office and eat what we can give ye?”

He made a slight movement with his right hand in acknowledgment of the class distinction and answered in a calm, straightforward way:  “You have put it quite correctly.  I am, as you are pleased to state it, flat broke—­quite flat.”

“Well, then, how will ye pay me?” Her question, a certain curiosity tinged by a growing interest in for all its directness, implied no suspicion—­but rather the man.

“I have just borrowed twenty-five dollars from Mr. Kling on something which, for the present, I can do without.”

“Pawned it?”

“No, not exactly.  Mr. Kling will explain.”

“It vas dot dressin’-case, Kitty, vat I showed you last night—­de vun vid dem bottles vid de silver tops—­ and dey are real—­I found dot out after you vent avay.”

Kitty’s glance softened, and her voice fell to a sympathetic tone.  “Oh, that was yours, was it?  I might have known I was right about ye when I first see ye.  Ye are a gentleman, unless ye are a thief, and I don’t belave that—­nor nobody can make me belave it.”

Once more his hand was raised, and a smile flashed from his eyes and as quickly died out.

“That is very good of you, Mrs. Cleary.  No, I am not a thief.  And now about the room.  Can I see it?  But, before you answer, let me tell you that I have only these twenty-five dollars on which I can lay my hands.  Some of this I owe to my landlady.  The balance I am quite willing to turn over to you, and when it is all gone I will move somewhere else.”  He drew a silver watch from his pocket.  “You must decide at once; it is getting late and I must be moving on.”