A Modern Instance Part 22

"I see you have apartments to let," said Bartley.

"Well, yes," admitted the woman, as if she considered it useless to deny it, "I have."

"I should like to look at them," returned Bartley, with promptness. "Come, Marcia." And, reinforced by her, he invaded the premises before the landlady had time to repel him. "I'll tell you what we want," he continued, turning into the little reception-room at the side of the door, "and if you haven't got it, there's no need to trouble you. We want a fair-sized room, anywhere between the cellar-floor and the roof, with a bed and a stove and a table in it, that sha'n't cost us more than ten dollars a week, with board."

"Set down," said the landlady, herself setting the example by sinking into the rocking-chair behind her and beginning to rock while she made a brief study of the intruders. "Want it for yourselves?"

"Yes," said Bartley.

"Well," returned the landlady, "I always _have_ preferred single gentlemen."

"I inferred as much from a remark which you made in your front window,"

said Bartley, indicating the placard.

The landlady smiled. They were certainly a very pretty-appearing young couple, and the gentleman was evidently up-and-coming. Mrs. Nash liked Bartley, as most people of her grade did, at once. "It's always be'n my exper'ence," she explained, with the lazily rhythmical drawl in which most half-bred New-Englanders speak, "that I seemed to get along rather better with gentlemen. They give less trouble--as a general rule," she added, with a glance at Marcia, as if she did not deny that there were exceptions, and Marcia might be a striking one.

Bartley seized his advantage. "Well, my wife hasn't been married long enough to be unreasonable. I guess you'd get along."

They both laughed, and Marcia, blus.h.i.+ng, joined them.

"Well, I thought when you first come up the steps you hadn't been married--well, not a _great_ while," said the landlady.

"No," said Bartley. "It seems a good while to my wife; but we were only married day before yesterday."

"The land!" cried Mrs. Nash.

"Bartley!" whispered Marcia, in soft upbraiding.

"What? Well, say last week, then. We were married last week, and we've come to Boston to seek our fortune."

His wit overjoyed Mrs. Nash. "You'll find Boston an awful hard place to get along," she said, shaking her head with a warning smile.

"I shouldn't think so, by the price Boston people ask for their rooms,"

returned Bartley. "If I had rooms to let, I should get along pretty easily."

This again delighted the landlady. "I guess you aint goin' to get out of spirits, anyway," she said. "Well," she continued, "I _have_ got a room 't I guess would suit you. Unexpectedly vacated." She seemed to recur to the language of an advertis.e.m.e.nt in these words, which she p.r.o.nounced as if reading them. "It's pretty high up," she said, with another warning shake of the head.

"Stairs to get to it?" asked Bartley.

"Plenty of _stairs_."

"Well, when a place is pretty high up, I like to have plenty of stairs to get to it. I guess we'll see it, Marcia." He rose.

"Well, I'll just go up and see if it's _fit_ to be seen, first," said the landlady.

"Oh, Bartley!" said Marcia, when she had left them alone, "how _could_ you joke so about our just being married!"

"Well, I saw she wanted awfully to ask. And anybody can tell by looking at us, anyway. We can't keep that to ourselves, any more than we can our greenness. Besides, it's money in our pockets; she'll take something off our board for it, you'll see. Now, will you manage the bargaining from this on? I stepped forward because the rooms were for gentlemen only."

"I guess I'd better," said Marcia.

"All right; then I'll take a back seat from this out."

"Oh, I do _hope_ it won't be too much!" sighed the young wife. "I'm so _tired_, looking."

"You can come right along up," the landlady called down through the oval spire formed by the ascending hand-rail of the stairs.

They found her in a broad, low room, whose ceiling sloped with the roof, and had the pleasant irregularity of the angles and recessions of two dormer windows. The room was clean and cosey; there was a table, and a stove that could be used open or shut; Marcia squeezed Bartley's arm to signify that it would do perfectly--if only the price would suit.

The landlady stood in the middle of the floor and lectured: "Now, there!

I get five dollars a week for this room; and I gen'ly let it to two gentlemen. It's just been vacated by two gentlemen unexpectedly; and it's hard to get gentlemen at this time the year; and that's the reason I thought of takin' you. As I _say_, I don't much like ladies for inmates, and so I put in the window 'for gentlemen only.' But it's no use bein' too particular; I can't have the room layin' empty on my hands. If it suits you, you can have it for four dollars. It's high up, and there's no use tryin' to deny it. But there aint such another view as them winders commands anywheres. You can see the harbor, and pretty much the whole coast."

"Anything extra for the view?" said Bartley, glancing out.

"No, I throw that in."

"Does the price include gas and fire?" asked Marcia, sharpened as to all details by previous interviews.

"It includes the gas, but it don't include the fire," said the landlady, firmly. "And it's pretty low at that, as you've found out, I guess."

"Yes, it is low," said Marcia. "Bartley, I think we'd better take it."

She looked at him timidly, as if she were afraid he might not think it good enough; she did not think it good enough for him, but she felt that they must make their money go as far as possible.

"All _right_!" he said. "Then it's a bargain."

"And how much more will the board be?"

"Well, there," the landlady said, with candor, "I don't know as I can meet your views. I don't ever give board. But there's plenty of houses right on the street here where you can get day-board from four dollars a week up."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Marcia; "and that would make it twelve dollars!"

"Why, the dear suz, child!" exclaimed the landlady, "you didn't expect to get it for less?"

"We must," said Marcia.

"Then you'll have to go to a mechanics' boardin'-house."

"I suppose we shall," she returned, dejectedly. Bartley whistled.

"Look here," said the landlady, "aint you from Down East, some'eres?"

Marcia started, as if the woman had recognized them. "Yes." she said.

"Well, now," said Mrs. Nash, "I'm from down Maine way myself, and I'll tell you what I should do, if I was in your _place_. You don't want much of anything tor breakfast or tea; you can boil you an egg on the stove here, and you can make your own tea or coffee; and if I was you, I'd go out for my dinners to an eatin'-house. I heard some my lodgers tellin' how they done. Well, I heard the very gentlemen that occupied this room sayin' how they used to go to an eatin'-house, and one 'd order one thing, and another another, and then they'd halve it between 'em, and make out a first-rate meal for about a quarter apiece. Plenty of places now where they give you a cut o'lamb or rib-beef for a s.h.i.+llin', and they bring you bread and b.u.t.ter and potato with it; an' it's always enough for two. That's what they _said_. I haint never tried it myself; but as long as you haint got anybody but yourselves to care for, there aint any reason why _you_ shouldn't."

They looked at each other.

"Well," added the landlady for a final touch, "_say_ fire. That stove won't burn a great deal, anyway."