around in rubber boots, taking the pictures off the walls.

I was too busy to see who the Ladleys' visitor was, and he had gone
when I remembered him again. The Ladleys took the second-story front,
which was empty, and Mr. Reynolds, who was in the silk department in a
store across the river, had the room just behind.

I put up a coal stove in a back room next the bathroom, and managed to
cook the dinner there. I was washing up the dishes when Mr. Reynolds
came in. As it was Sunday, he was in his slippers and had the colored
supplement of a morning paper in his hand.

"What's the matter with the Ladleys?" he asked. "I can't read for
their quarreling."

"Booze, probably," I said. "When you've lived in the flood district as
long as I have, Mr. Reynolds, you'll know that the rising of the river
is a signal for every man in the vicinity to stop work and get full.
The fuller the river, the fuller the male population."

"Then this flood will likely make 'em drink themselves to death!" he
said. "It's a lulu."

"It's the neighborhood's annual debauch. The women are busy keeping
the babies from getting drowned in the cellars, or they'd get full,
too. I hope, since it's come this far, it will come farther, so the
landlord will have to paper the parlor."

That was at three o'clock. At four Mr. Ladley went down the stairs,
and I heard him getting into a skiff in the lower hall. There were