"Well, I hope so. I don't see how I can keep him any longer. He owes me forty dollars. If any body'll pay half on't, I'd keep on doin' for him."
"I will see what can be done for him. Why was he not sent to the hospital?"
"He's too bad to be sent, and he don't want to go, nuther. He says the doctors try speriments on poor fellers like him, and he don't want to be cut up afore he's dead."
"Well, I will endeavor to have something done for him. I am entirely willing to help him as much as I can."
"Perhaps you'd be willin' to do sunthin' towards payin' my bill, then."
"Perhaps I will; but I wish to see the man before I do anything. Will you show me to his room?"
"I don't go up and down stairs none now. Here, Childs, you show this gentleman up to the front room," said the landlady to one of the vagabonds before her. "Then go and tell Tom his officer has come. I suppose they'll want to slick up a little, afore they let you in; but Miss Barron will tell you when she is ready."
Somers followed the man up a flight of rickety stairs, and was ushered into the front room. It was a bedchamber, supplied with the rudest and coarsest furniture. The visitor sat down, after telling Childs that the sailor's mother need not stop to "slick up" before he was admitted. He did not like the surroundings, even independent of the villainous odors that rose from the groggery, and those that were engendered in the apartment where he sat. Slush and tar were agreeable perfumes, compared with those which assaulted his sense in this chamber; and he hoped Mrs. Barron would humiliate her pride to an extent which would permit him to make a speedy exit from the house.
Mrs. Barron, however, appeared not to be in a hurry, and Somers waited ten minutes by his watch, which seemed to expand into a full hour before he heard a sound to disturb the monotony of the chamber's quiet. But when it was disturbed, it was in such a manner that he forgot all about the place and the odors, the hour and the occasion, and even the poor sailor, who had so piteously appealed to him for assistance.
In the rear of the room in which Somers sat, there was a door communicating with another apartment. The house was old and out of repair; and this door, never very nicely adjusted, was now warped and thrown out of place, so that great cracks yawned around the edges, and whatever was said or done in one room, of which any knowledge could be obtained by the sense of hearing, was immediately patent to the occupants of the other. Somers heard footsteps in the rear room, though the parties appeared not to have come up the stairs by which he had ascended. The rattling of chairs and of glass ware next saluted his ears; but as yet Somers had not the slightest interest in the business of the adjoining apartment, and only wished that Mrs. Barron would speedily complete the preparations for his reception.