On nearly every door furnished rooms are advertised for rent.
The house in front of which the man halted Peewee was detached—a limestone pile of former grandeur, surrounded by a small unkempt yard. The man seemed familiar with the place. He rang the bell decisively, and when, after an interval, it was answered by a slatternly old woman with gray hair falling over her eyes, he pushed her aside and led Peewee in. They ascended a musty smelling stair to an equally musty smelling, dusky hall. The door upon which the man knocked, after following this hall, was opened by a frivolous looking colored girl in high-heeled, expensive shoes. The man and the business he came upon appeared known to her, for she motioned them to come in without making any inquiry. She looked curiously at the boy. The man pushed Peewee ahead of him into a room of what had been once an ornate suite of double bedrooms, dressing room and bath. Only part of these rooms were visible; the door of the furthest room was closed. Curtains of imitation lace, gray with dust, cov-
