“She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross like. Thirty-four’s on one side o’ the street an’ thirty-five on t’ other. How’s that?”
“That is the invariable rule, I believe.”
“Then—I say—these here new folk that you ’n’ your wife seem so mighty taken up with—d’ ye know any thing about ’em?”
“I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus,” I replied, conscious of some irritability. “If I choose to associate with any of them—“
“Jess so—jess so!” broke in Jacobus. “I hain’t nothin’ to say ag’inst yer sosherbil’ty. But do ye know them?”
“Why, certainly not,” I replied.
“Well—that was all I wuz askin’ ye. Ye see, when he come here to take the rooms—you wasn’t here then—he told my wife that he lived at number thirty-four in his street. An’ yistiddy she told her that they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now there can’t be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin they?”
“What street was it?” I inquired, wearily.
“Hunderd ’n’ twenty-first street.”
“May be,” I replied, still more wearily. “That’s Harlem. Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.”