CHAPTER III

"AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"


We say matters took a turn; or, better, that Frowenfeld's interest in
affairs received a new life. This had its beginning in Doctor Keene's
making himself specially entertaining in an old-family-history way, with
a view to keeping his patient within doors for a safe period. He had
conceived a great liking for Frowenfeld, and often, of an afternoon,
would drift in to challenge him to a game of chess--a game, by the way,
for which neither of them cared a farthing. The immigrant had learned
its moves to gratify his father, and the doctor--the truth is, the
doctor had never quite learned them; but he was one of those men who
cannot easily consent to acknowledge a mere affection for one, least of
all one of their own sex. It may safely be supposed, then, that the
board often displayed an arrangement of pieces that would have
bewildered Morphy himself.

"By the by, Frowenfeld," he said one evening, after the one preliminary
move with which he invariably opened his game, "you haven't made the
acquaintance of your pretty neighbors next door."

Frowenfeld knew of no specially pretty neighbors next door on either
side--had noticed no ladies.