Again in the thronged street, little Miss Wiggin turned with an apology: “Maybe I oughtn’t to’ve asked you to come to my room. Probably you’re used to something better.”
“Don’t you believe it!” Bobs replied cheerily. “I live in the shabbiest kind of a dump.” She did not add that she had not as yet resided on New York’s East Side for more than twenty-four hours, at the longest, and that prior to that her home on Long Island had been palatial. She was eager to know how girls who had never had a chance were forced to live. Miss Wiggin was descending rather rickety steps below the street level. “Is your room in the basement?” Bobs asked, trying to keep from her voice the shock that this revelation brought to her. No wonder there were no roses in the wan cheeks of little Miss Wiggin.
“Yes,” was the reply, “the caretakers of the buildings all live in the basements, you know, and Mrs. O’Malley, the janitor of this one, is a widow with two little boys. She had a room to rent cheap and so I took it.”
Then she led the way through a long, narrow, dark hall. Once Bobs touched the wall and she drew back shuddering, for the stones were cold and clammy.
The little room to which Bobs was admitted opened only on an air shaft, but there was sunlight entering its one small window; too, there were white curtains and a geranium in bloom on the sill.
“It’s always pleasantest at noon, for that’s the only time that the sun reaches my window,” the little hostess said, as she hurriedly drew a sewing table out from behind the small cot bed, unfolded it and placed the lunch thereon. Bobs’ gaze wandered about the room, which was so small that its three pieces of furniture seemed to crowd it. In one corner was a bamboo bookcase which held the real treasure of Miss Wiggin. Row after row of books in uniform dark red binding. They were all there—Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Old Curiosity Shop and the rest of them.
“Nights it would be sort of dismal sitting in here alone if ’twasn’t for those books,” the little hostess confessed. “That’s a real good kerosene lamp I have. It makes a bright light. I curl up on the couch as soon as my supper’s eaten, and then I forget where I really am, for I go wherever the story takes me. Come, everything is ready,” she added, “and since fifteen minutes of our time is gone already, we’d better eat without talking.”
This they did, and Gloria would have said that they gulped their food, but what can one do with but half an hour for nooning?
They didn’t even stop to put away the table. “I’ll leave it ready for my supper tonight,” Miss Wiggin said, as she fairly flew down the dark, damp basement hall.
Five minutes later they were entering the alley door of the antique shop which had so fine an entrance on Fifth Avenue.