cupboard, but otherwise he was a model lodger, giving no trouble, and
requiring practically no attendance. His oddities were that he insisted
on being present when his room was being swept, and that when he went out
he locked his door, and took the key away with him.

Ossipon had a vision of these round black-rimmed spectacles progressing
along the streets on the top of an omnibus, their self-confident glitter
falling here and there on the walls of houses or lowered upon the heads
of the unconscious stream of people on the pavements. The ghost of a
sickly smile altered the set of Ossipon's thick lips at the thought of
the walls nodding, of people running for life at the sight of those
spectacles. If they had only known! What a panic! He murmured
interrogatively: "Been sitting long here?"

"An hour or more," answered the other negligently, and took a pull at the
dark beer. All his movements--the way he grasped the mug, the act of
drinking, the way he set the heavy glass down and folded his arms--had a
firmness, an assured precision which made the big and muscular Ossipon,
leaning forward with staring eyes and protruding lips, look the picture
of eager indecision.

"An hour," he said. "Then it may be you haven't heard yet the news I've
heard just now--in the street. Have you?"

The little man shook his head negatively the least bit. But as he gave
no indication of curiosity Ossipon ventured to add that he had heard it
just outside the place. A newspaper boy had yelled the thing under his
very nose, and not being prepared for anything of that sort, he was very
much startled and upset. He had to come in there with a dry mouth. "I
never thought of finding you here," he added, murmuring steadily, with