“Wait a minute,” counselled Ira. “He didn’t mean it that way. Now I tell you what we’ll do.” He glanced across the corridor to where a door had just opened to emit a large youth who was now regarding them with his hands in his pockets and a broad smile on his face. “You let this chap and me talk it over quietly, Mrs. Magoon. We’ll settle it between us. There’s no reason to get excited about it, is there? Just you go on down, ma’am, and it’ll be all right.”
“There’s only one way it can be settled,” replied the landlady irately, “and that’s for him to take himself and his trunk out of my house!”
“But there’s no hurry, Mrs. Magoon. Besides, we’re disturbing the others with all this racket. Shove that trunk inside, please, and we’ll close the door first of all.”
Mrs. Magoon grunted, hesitated and finally went grumbling off down the stairs, and Ira, taking affairs into his own hands, pushed the small trunk out of the way of the door, its owner grudgingly vacating his strategic position atop, and closed the portal, to the disappointment of the neighbour across the way.
“Now,” said Ira pleasantly, “sit down and be comfortable. Try the armchair. What’s your name? Mine’s Rowland.”
“Mine’s Nead,” replied the other, not very amiably. “Names haven’t anything to do with it, though.”
“Just wanted to know what to call you. Now, honest-to-goodness, Nead, did Mrs. Magoon say she’d hold this room until you had decided?”
“She did! If it’s the last word I ever utter——”
“All right! And, if you don’t mind telling me, how much were you to pay for it?”
“Thirteen dollars and a half a month.”