OWEN CAREY
private house that had been converted into "studio apartments" by the owner, an eccentric woman of artistic tastes who proved, on nearer acquaintance, to be a "Peruna fiend." And the rooms were almost uninhabitable not only because they were damp, but because the landlady was a pest. The important thing about them was this: They had been made into a sort of Dutch cellar with a red-tiled floor, half-timbered walls, beamed ceilings, burnt-umber woodwork, an open fireplace, and semi-opaque windows of leaded panes, sunken below the street level. They had evidently been a basement dining-room and kitchen when the house was private. Carey took them for a reason of which he was, I think, unaware; they did not look like modern rooms in New York City, and they would be a complete change of background for the girl.
He moved his belongings himself, making a half-dozen trips on the Elevated railroad with his suitcase full, and abandoning his cot and his table because it would be cheaper to buy new ones than to pay cartage on the old. The rear room—the kitchen, with a gas-stove and a sink—he furnished for the girl, since it was heated by the house furnace, which intruded its warm back through the side wall. He bought second-hand furniture and helped install it himself; and he avoided the curiosity of the landlady by refusing to answer her when she knocked on his door.
He brought the girl up after midnight. They
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