left their house that night--he who knew how to do nothing of use
or value. ``It is a great condescension for me. Working
people--ugh!''

As he strolled up town he was spending in fancy the income from
at least two, perhaps all three, flat-houses--``The shop's enough
for the old people and that dumb ass of a brother. I'll elevate
the family. Yes, I think I'll run away with Hilda
to-morrow--that's the safest plan.''

Otto had guessed close to the truth about Feuerstein's affairs.
They were in a desperate tangle. He had been discharged from the
stock company on Saturday night. He was worthless as an actor,
and had the hostility of the management and of his associates.
His landlady had got the news promptly from a boarder who paid in
part by acting as a sort of mercantile agency for her in watching
her very uncertain boarders. She had given him a week's notice,
and had so arranged matters that if he fled he could not take his
meager baggage. He was down to eighty-five cents of a borrowed
dollar. He owed money everywhere in sums ranging from five
dollars to twenty-five cents. The most of these debts were in
the form of half-dollar borrowings. He had begun his New York
career with loans of ``five dollars until Thursday--I'm a little
pressed.'' Soon it became impossible for him to get more than a
dollar at a time even from the women, except an occasional
windfall through a weak or ignorant new acquaintance. He clung
tenaciously to the fifty-cent basis--to go lower would cheapen
him. But for the last two weeks his regular levies had been of
twenty-five cents, with not a few descents to ten and even five
cents.