The door was opened by the woman who had admitted Kit and Churn. Not only was she black, but she was fat and slovenly. Staring at the new-comer, she exclaimed with a mouth full of gum:
"Say, is you another fren' o' Mr. Cheffinsky?"
"Chuff!" was the password that flashed through Clo's brain. "This is where he lives!" She was triumphant.
"I don't know anything about Mr. Cheffinsky," she replied, "but I'm in a scrape, and a friend of mine once recommended me to this house. I saw some people come in, and a light. It's still a boarding-house, isn't it?"
"It ain't no foundlin' orphant asylum."
"I don't ask for charity. I've got money to pay my board. But I don't want an expensive room. One at the top of the house will do."
"Say, it's a real funny time o' night for a young girl like you to go lookin' foh a home to lay her haid," remarked the negress. "But you can step in the hall. I'll call Mis' MacMahon. She's the lady o' the house. We've got a room upstahs, but I don't know whethah she'll let you have it."
She allowed Clo to enter, and left the girl standing as she descended the basement stairs.
"'MacMahon' sounds hopeful!" Clo thought. The girl had lodged drearily in New York, but she had never been in a house as dreary as this.
Mrs. MacMahon's look was less inspiring than her name. She was of the big-jowled type; a grim woman of middle age; and her manner suggested suspicion. But Clo began to speak first, with her best brogue, which she could use, when needed, with great effect.