"The best what?"
"De bes' body. We'se got twenty-five bodies now, boss. Sometimes dere's twenty-eight."
"Oh, you mean boarders?"
"Yassah. Bodies."
Jared's room was in the attic. Pliny Abraham, who had been intensely serious, began to grin as his bearer, after putting him down, placed a dime in each of his little pink pockets; then he dashed out of the room, his black legs disappearing so suddenly that Chase had the curiosity to follow to the top of the stairs and look over. Pliny had evidently slid down the banisters; for he was already embarked on the broader rail of the flight below.
Twenty minutes later there was a step on the stair; the door opened, and Jared Franklin came in.
"They didn't tell you I was here?" said Chase, as they shook hands.
"No. Mrs. Nightingale is usually very attentive; too much so, in fact; she's a bother!" Jared answered. "To-night, however, there's a party down below, and she has the supper on her mind."
"Is Pliny Abraham to serve it?"
"You've seen him, have you?" said Jared, who was now lighting a lamp. "Confounded smell—petroleum!" And he threw up the sash of the window.