“You had a passel of books and an overcoat five or six weeks ago,” she said, “when you come here. It was seein' them books, and knowing what you was four or five years ago, when you lived here once before, that made me sure you was a gentleman.”
Mr. Gooley made no reply. The cockroach on the foot of the bed also seemed to be listening to see if Mrs. Hinkley had anything more to say, and suspending judgment.
“Mr. Gooley,” said the landlady, “I beg your pardon. You was lied on by one that has a gas plate herself, and when I taxed her with it, and took it away from her, and got rid of her, she had the impudence to say she thought it was allowed, and that everybody done it, and named you as one that did.”
Mrs. Hinkley paused, but neither Mr. Gooley nor the cockroach had anything to contribute to the conversation.
“Gas,” continued Mrs. Hinkley, “is gas. And gas costs money. I hadn't orter jumped on you the way I did, Mr. Gooley, but gas plates has got to be what you might call corns on my brain, Mr. Gooley. They're my sensitive spot, Mr. Gooley. If I was to tell you the half of what I have had to suffer from gas plates during the last thirty years, Mr. Gooley, you wouldn't believe it! There's them that will cheat you one way and there's them that will cheat you another, but the best of them will cheat you with gas plates, Mr. Gooley. With the exception of yourself, Mr. Gooley, I ain't had a lodger in thirty years that wouldn't rob me on the gas. Some don't think it's stealin', Mr. Gooley, when they steal gas. And some of 'em don't care if it is. But there ain't none of 'em ever thinks what a landlady goes through with, year in and year out.”
She paused for a moment, and then, overcome with self-pity, she began to sniffle.
“And my rent's been raised on me again, Mr. Gooley! And I'm a month behind! And if I ain't come across with the two months, the old month and the new, by day after to-morrow, out I goes; and it means the poorhouse as fur as I can see, because I don't know anything else but keeping lodgers, and I got no place to go!”
She gathered her apron up and wiped her eyes and nose with it. The cockroach on the footboard wiped his front set of feet across his face sympathetically.
“I got it all ready but fifteen dollars,” continued Mrs. Hinkley, “and then in comes the gas bill this morning with arrears onto it. It is them arrears, Mr. Gooley, that always knocks me out! If it wasn't for them arrears, I could get along. And now I got to pay out part of the rent money onto the gas bill, with them arrears on it, or the gas will be shut off this afternoon.”
The pain in Mr. Gooley's head was getting worse. He wished she would go. He hated hearing her troubles. But she continued: