“That will let you in at any time, but I hope you are a steady young man and don’t keep very late hours.”
“I don’t expect to,” answered Ben, with a smile.
“I had a young man in this room last spring who annoyed me very much by coming home drunk and disturbing the house in his efforts to get up-stairs.”
“I don’t expect to trouble you in that way,” said Ben. “I don’t know many people in the city” (he didn’t like to say “any,” though he might have done so truthfully), “and shall not be tempted to keep late hours.”
It did not take long for Ben to establish himself in his new room. He went out and took a walk on Broadway.
He thought he would defer looking for a place till the next morning. He stayed out several hours, and then feeling fatigued, went back to the lodging-house.
He lay down on the bed in his clothes, but had hardly been there ten minutes when there was a knock on his door.
Ben was rather surprised at having a caller so soon, but he turned his face to the door and said, “Come in!”
A young man, apparently about twenty-five, entered. He had long black hair, and a broad, high forehead.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but you are a new lodger.”