"Heavens!" exclaimed John, stifling the note in his hand and stalking
tragically around the room. "Can it be possible that I have nursed a
frozen viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing? An orang-outang
in gent's furnishings?"

"Was you callin' me, sir?" asked a voice at the door. It was the
janitor.

"No!" thundered John; "Quit my sight! get out of my way! No, no,
Thompson, I don't mean that," he called after him. "Here's a half
dollar for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and tell anybody
that wants to see me that I've been set upon, and sacked and
assassinated in cold blood; and I've fled to my father's in the
country, and am lying there in the convulsions of dissolution,
babbling of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting for the
life of every woman that comes in gunshot!" And then, more like a
confirmed invalid than a man in the strength and pride of his prime,
he crept down into the street again, and thence back to his hotel.

Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he encountered, on the
landing above, a little woman in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit
of crisp muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She looked him
squarely in the face--occasioning him the dubious impression of either
needing shaving very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin.

"You're the gentleman in No. 11, I believe?" she said.

He nodded confusedly.

"Mr. McKinney is your name, I think?" she queried, with a pretty