What temptation, he did not know. Possibly it meant any kind of temptation. Anyway, it had been held before his eyes since he could remember.
And there was another—‘Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.’ This one was in green on a tan background, with a grapevine effect. His mother had never said much about this one. He knew the house did not belong to them. Sam Tilton rented it to them.
Finally he got up from the chair and went to an old desk, where his mother kept her papers. There was a letter, which came the day she died, still unopened. He looked at the postmark on it, which was slightly smudged, but was able to decipher ‘Mesa City, Ariz.’
Slowly he tore it open and took out the single content—a folded green check on the Mesa City Bank, drawn in favor of Mrs. Peter Morgan, for the sum of seventy-five dollars. It was signed with an unintelligible scrawl, badly blotted.
He put the check back in the envelope. Some one was knocking at the front door, and that some one was Sam Tilton, short of stature, pudgy of waist, puffing heavily on the short butt of a cigar, almost enfolded between his thick lips.
‘I was thinkin’ about the rent,’ he panted. ‘Due las’ week. Don’t like to have it go too long. Sorry about your ma, young man.’
‘How much was the rent?’ asked Rex.
‘Seventy-fi’ dollars per quatter—due in advance.’
Rex drew out the check and handed it to him.
‘Fuf-fine,’ panted Tilton heavily, drawing out a much-thumbed receipt-book. ‘Goin’ to stay on, eh? Uh-uh——’