“She has had an old friend with her to-day,” said our Reporter, thinking he might by this question obtain some information of Antony Cowlrick.
“Has she? I’m glad to hear it. I’ve wondered a good deal about the girl, and so has all of us in the street. She don’t mix with us free like. Not that she ain’t affable! But she keeps herself to herself. I must go in now,” said the woman, with a giggle, “or my old man’ll think I’ve run off with somebody.”
She entered the house, and our Reporter, with little Fanny asleep in his arms, followed. On the first floor the woman vanished, and he pursued his way to the third. The stairs were in utter darkness, and he had to exercise great care to save his shins and to avoid disturbing the lodgers in the house. In due time he reached the third floor, and struck a match. There were only two doors on the landing, and he saw at once which of the two led to the back room. He knocked, and received no response; and then he tried the handle of the door. It gave way, and he was in the room, in utter darkness.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, addressing, as he believed, the occupant, “but as no one answered”——
He did not finish the sentence, for the stillness of the room affected him. His position was certainly a perplexing one. He listened for the breathing of some person, but heard none.
“Antony Cowlrick,” he thought, “have you been playing me a trick?”
He struck another match, and lit a candle which was on a small table. Then he looked around. The room was empty.
“Now,” thought our Reporter, “if this is not the room in which Antony Cowlrick led me to expect he would receive me, and the tenant proper himself or herself should suddenly appear, I shall scarcely be prepared to offer a reasonable excuse for my intrusion.”
No articles of clothing were in sight to enlighten him as to the sex of the tenant of this third-floor back. There was a bed in decent order, and he laid little Fanny upon it. Having done this, he noticed that food was on the table—the remains of a loaf cut in slices, with a scraping of butter on them, a small quantity of tea screwed up in paper, and a saucer with about an ounce of brown sugar in it.
“Not exactly a Rothschild,” mused our Reporter, “but quite as happy perhaps.”