“I can’t give it to you,” announced the Reverend Smith Boyd firmly. “I’ve offered you an opportunity to earn money, and you won’t accept it. That ends my responsibility.”
“You’d better take it, Frank,” advised the woman, losing a little of the weakness of her voice.
“You ’tend to your own business!” advised Mr. Rogers in return. “You’re supposed to run the house, and I’m supposed to earn the living! Reverend Boyd, if you’ll lend me two dollars till a week from Saturday—”
“I told you no,” and the rector started to leave the room.
There was a knock at the door. A thick-armed man with a short, wide face walked in, a pail in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other. On the back of his head was pushed a bright blue cap, with “Sanitary Police” on it, in tarnished braid. Mr. Rogers stood up.
“What do you want?” he quite naturally inquired.
“Clean up,” replied the sanitary policeman, setting down his pail and ducking his head at the rector, then mopping his brow with a bent forefinger, while he picked out a place to begin.
“Nothin’ doing!” announced Mr. Rogers, aflame with the dignity of an outraged householder. “Good-night!” and he advanced a warning step.
The wide set sanitary policeman paused in his survey long enough to wag a thick forefinger at the outraged householder.
“Don’t start anything,” he advised. “There’s some tough mugs in this block, but you go down to the places I’ve been, and you’ll find that they’re all clean.”