"You're awful good-natured,"--She hesitated,--"but I ain't going to
take your medicine. I ought to go and get some for myself. How much
does it cost?"

"It's on the bottle; but it's having to get it for yourself that's
the matter. You won't have time, and you'll forget it."

"That's true enough," said Mrs. Bowse, looking at him sharply. "I
guess you know something about boarding-houses."

"I guess I know something about trying to earn three meals a day--or
two of them. It's no merry jest, whichever way you do it."




CHAPTER II


When he took possession of his hall bedroom the next day and came
down to his first meal, all the boarders looked at him interestedly.
They had heard of the G. Destroyer from Mrs. Bowse, whose grippe had
disappeared. Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger looked at him because
they were about his own age, and shared a hall bedroom on his floor;
the young woman from the notion counter in a down-town department
store looked at him because she was a young woman; the rest of the
company looked at him because a young man in a hall bedroom might or
might not be noisy or objectionable, and the incident of the G.
Destroyer sounded good-natured. Mr. Joseph Hutchinson, the stout and