CHAPTER V. JAMES CROMWELL GAINS SOME INFORMATION.
On the east side of the Bowery is a shabby street, which clearly enough indicates, by its general appearance, that it is never likely to be the resort of fashionable people. But in a large city there are a great many people who are not fashionable, and cannot aspire to fashionable quarters, and these must be housed as well as they may.
There stands in this street a shabby brick house of three stories. In the rear room of the upper story lived James Cromwell, the clerk in the druggist's store already referred to in our first chapter. The room was small and scantily furnished, being merely provided with a pine bedstead, painted yellow, and a consumptive-looking bed, a wooden chair, washstand, and a seven-by-nine mirror. There was no bureau, and, in fact, it would have been difficult to introduce one into a room of the dimensions.
The occupant of the room stood before the mirror, arranging his rather intractable hair, which he had besmeared with bear's grease. He surveyed the effect with some complacency, for it is a little remarkable that those who are least gifted with beauty, are very apt to be best satisfied with their personal appearance.
He had arrayed himself in a rusty black suit which showed his lank figure in all its natural ungracefulness and was evidently on the point of going out.
"Now for Twenty-ninth Street," he said, as he descended to the street. "I hope Hake has not deceived me. If he has, I will twist the little rascal's neck."
He got on board a Fourth Avenue car, and rode uptown. Nothing occurred to interrupt his progress, and in the course of half an hour he stood before the house which, as we already know, was occupied by Paul Morton.
He stood and surveyed it from the opposite side of the street.