His studio was shut off from the larger of these rooms by double doors,
which, though they were fairly tight, left him a good deal at the mercy
of the occupant. The rooms had been leased, long before he came there, by
a trained nurse who considered herself knowing in old furniture. She went
to auction sales and bought up mahogany and dirty brass and stored it
away here, where she meant to live when she retired from nursing.
Meanwhile, she sub-let her rooms, with their precious furniture, to young
people who came to New York to "write" or to "paint"--who proposed to
live by the sweat of the brow rather than of the hand, and who desired
artistic surroundings.

When Hedger first moved in, these rooms were occupied by a young man who
tried to write plays,--and who kept on trying until a week ago, when the
nurse had put him out for unpaid rent.

A few days after the playwright left, Hedger heard an ominous murmur of
voices through the bolted double doors: the lady-like intonation of the
nurse--doubtless exhibiting her treasures--and another voice, also a
woman's, but very different; young, fresh, unguarded, confident. All the
same, it would be very annoying to have a woman in there. The only
bath-room on the floor was at the top of the stairs in the front hall,
and he would always be running into her as he came or went from his bath.
He would have to be more careful to see that Caesar didn't leave bones
about the hall, too; and she might object when he cooked steak and onions
on his gas burner.

As soon as the talking ceased and the women left, he forgot them. He was
absorbed in a study of paradise fish at the Aquarium, staring out at
people through the glass and green water of their tank. It was a highly
gratifying idea; the incommunicability of one stratum of animal life with