A BED FOR THE NIGHT
A drizzling rain had begun to fall. I was wet and chilled to the bone. I had just left the free ward of a hospital, where I had been taken when ill with the flu. It was good to be home again! Even though what I called home were but the dim, narrow halls of a lodging-house. With a sigh of relief, I dropped my suitcase in the vestibule.
As the door swung open, the landlady met me with: “Your room is taken. Your things are in the cellar.”
“My room?” I stammered, white with fear.
“Oh no—please, Mrs. Pelz!”
“I got a chance to rent your room at such a good price, I couldn’t afford to hold it.”
“But you promised to keep it for me while I was away. And I paid you for it——”
“The landlord raised me my rent and I got to get it out from the roomers,” she defended. “I got four hungry mouths to feed——”
“But maybe I would have paid you a little more,” I pleaded. “If you had only told me. I have to go back to work to-day. How can I get another room at a moment’s notice?”
“We all got to look out for ourselves. I am getting more than twice as much as you paid me from this new lodger,” she finished triumphantly. “And no housekeeping privileges.”