“Can I see the landlord?”
“I dun know nuffin ’bout no lan’lor. Yo’ kin see Missis B’own, I yeckon. She ’ten’s to eberyfing.”
“Then take my card to Mrs. Brown,” Hanson said, handing over the slip of pasteboard.
The boy disappeared within the elevator, which was about to rise to the upper regions.
Hanson walked up and down the hall for about five minutes, at the end of which time Tom reappeared with a message to the effect that Mrs. Brown would see the visitor.
Hanson followed the boy to the elevator, which rose to the top floor of the house, on which Mrs. Brown’s “sky parlor” was located. It was a plainly furnished room, with a Kidderminster carpet, horsehair chairs and sofa, and windows overlooking the whole city, the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, and the wooded hills of Maryland and Virginia.
Mrs. Brown, the same stout, compact woman of medium height, with fresh complexion, black eyes and black hair, clothed in a dark woolen suit, as I have before described her, rose from her chair and came forward with outstretched hand to meet the visitor, saying:
“I am very glad to see any friend of Miss Fronde. She endeared herself very much to us all during the four months she remained with us.”
“She was here four months, then?”
“Yes, sir. Sit down, pray.”