“Damn you, Old Archibald Hammil!” he cried. And he scooped the cockroach into his hand with a sudden sweep and flung it out of the window. The insect fell without perceptible discomfort, and at once began to climb up the outside wall again, making for the window.
The door opened and Mrs. Hinkley entered, her face cleft with a grin, and a tray in her hands.
“Mr. Gooley,” she said, setting it on the wash-stand, “I'll bet you ain't had nothing to eat today!”
On the tray was a bowl of soup, a half loaf of bread with a long keen bread knife, a pat of butter, a boiled egg and a cup of coffee.
“No, nor yesterday, either,” said Mr. Gooley, and he looked at the soup and at the long keen bread knife.
“Here's something else I want to show you, Mr. Gooley,” said the landlady, dodging out of the door and back in again instantly. She bore in her hands this time a surprising length of flexible gas tubing, and a small nickel-plated pearl-handled revolver.
“You see that there gas tubing?” she said.
“That is what that blondined party in the next room had on to her gas plate—the nerve of her! Strung from the gas jet clear across the room to the window sill. And when I throwed her out, Mr. Gooley, she wouldn't pay her rent, and I took this here revolver to part pay it. What kind of a woman is it, Mr. Gooley, that has a revolver in her room, and a loaded one, too?”
Just then the doorbell rang in the dim lower regions, and she left the room to answer it.
And Mr. Gooley sat and looked at the knife, with which he might so easily stab himself, and at the gas cord, with which he might so easily hang himself, and at the loaded revolver, with which he might so easily shoot himself.