“Well, I don’t know what I can do,” replied the lady. “I can’t afford to go and buy a lot of new things. It’s all I can do to get along as it is, with rents as low as they are. That room ought to fetch me six dollars a week, it should so. And I’m only getting four for it. And the price of everything a body has to buy is going up all the time. I don’t know what we’re coming to!”
“Suppose I buy a cheap single bed and mattress,” suggested Ira. “Will you take it off my hands when I move out?”
“I might. It wouldn’t be worth full price, though, young man, after being used a year or more.”
“No, that’s so. Suppose you pay me half what it costs me? Would that do?”
“Why, yes, I guess ’twould. But don’t go and buy an expensive one. I wouldn’t want to put much money into it.”
“Well, I dare say I can get a bed for six dollars and a mattress for ten, can’t I?”
“Land sakes! I should hope you could! You can get an iron bed for four dollars and a half that’s plenty good enough and a mattress for six. You go to Levinstein’s on Adams Street. That’s the cheapest place. Ask for Mr. Levinstein and tell him I sent you. I buy a lot from him. Leastways, I used to. I ain’t bought much lately, what with times so hard and rents what they are and everything a body has to have getting to cost more every day. I mind the time when——”
But Ira had flown, and Mrs. Magoon’s reminiscences were muttered to herself as she made her way down to the mysterious realms of the basement.
Nead flatly refused to spend any money for bed or mattress, but agreed to go halves on the furniture that Ira had already purchased and on anything it might be necessary to buy later. “You see,” he explained, “it will be your bed, and I won’t get anything out of it. Maybe I might swap mattresses with you if I like yours better, though,” he concluded with a laugh.
“You just try it!” said Ira grimly.