Nattie shrugged her shoulders, as if tired of the subject, and after a spasm of sneezing, Miss Kling continued:
"As you intimate, he means all right, poor fellow! and that is more than I should be willing to acknowledge regarding Mrs. Simonson's other lodger, that Mr. Norton, who calls himself an artist. I am sure I never saw any one except a convict wear such short hair!" and Miss Kling shook her head insinuatingly.
From this beginning, to Nattie's dismay, Miss Kling proceeded to the dissection of their neighbors who lived in the suite above, Celeste Fishblate and her father. The former, Miss Kling declared, was setting her cap for Quimby. Mr. Fishblate being an unquestionably disagreeable specimen of the genus homo, with a somewhat startling habit of exploding in short, but expressive sentences—never using more than three consecutive words—Nattie naturally expected to hear him even more severely anathematized than any one else. But to her surprise, the lady conducting the conversation declared him a "fine sensible man!" At which Nattie first stared, and then smiled, as it occurred to her that Mr. Fishblate was a widower, and might it not be that Miss Kling contemplated the possibility of his becoming that other self not yet attained?
Fortunately Miss Kling did not observe her lodger's looks, so intent was she in admiration of Mr. Fishblate's fine points, and soon took her leave.
After her departure, Nattie changed her inky dress, and put on her hat to go out for something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth, that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache, invariably suggested an alligator, opened the door of Mrs. Simonson's rooms, opposite, and seeing Nattie, started back in a sort of nervous bashfulness. Recovering himself, he then darted out with such impetuosity that his foot caught in a rug, he fell, and went headlong down stairs, dragging with him a fire-bucket, at which he clutched in a vain effort to save himself, the two jointly making a noise that echoed through the silent halls, and brought out the inhabitants of the rooms in alarm.
"What is it? Is any one killed?" shrieked from above, a voice, recognizable as that of Celeste Fishblate—two names that could never by any possibility sound harmonious.
"What is the matter now?" screamed Miss Kling, appearing at her door with the query.
"Have you hurt yourself?" Nattie asked, as she went down to where the hero of the catastrophe sat on the bottom stair, ruefully rubbing his elbow, but who now picked up his hat and the fire-bucket, and rose to explain.
"It's nothing—nothing at all, you know!" he said, looking upward, and bowing to the voices; "I caught my foot in the rug, and—"
"Did you tear the rug?" here anxiously interrupted the listening Mrs. Simonson, suddenly appearing at the banisters; not that she felt for her lodger less, but for the rug more, a distinction arising from that constant struggle with the "ways and means."