“This is a purty time o’ night to be a-prowlin’ ’round, a-draggin’ uv honest, hard-workin’ folks out’n the bed ter wait on ye,” the landlady replied. The reprimand came mixed with the rattle of straw-ticks and the rustle of bedclothing. “I am sorry,” the traveler answered, “but I came as early as I could. Really, I am neither the conductor, engineer, nor superintendent of that train. Don’t you keep hotel?” “Yes, sorter, a leetle, sometimes, when I feel like it. But can’t ye wait tell a body gits on her cloze; ur will ye jist come in anyhow, whether ur no?” “Oh, certainly, I’ll gladly wait,” the traveler said; “take your own time—mine, too.” “Whar air you frum?” asked the voice from within, somewhat muffled as it poked its head up through a calico dress. “I don’t see what that has to do with it, but I came directly from Lexington.” “Yes, I ’lowed so;” she answered. “I jist thought it ’uz some o’ them Bluegrass fellers what sets up all night and sleeps all day—what hain’t nothin’ to do but keep awake them that has to work.” After taking time enough to have arrayed herself for presentation to the queen, Madame Calico now approached the door, holding a little sputtering brass lamp—apparently the model of the first invention—in one hand, while she vainly tried to tie her apron strings with the other. She knocked up the wooden latch with her elbow and a clatter, and the door swung open. Holding high her lamp—a rustic model for “Liberty Enlightening the World”—she waited for the stranger to speak. “Madame, I’m very sorry—,” he began. “Yes, I know it,” she snapped, cutting him off from the remainder of his sentence. “’Bout ever’ thing ’at comes frum Lex’n’ton’s sorry, mighty sorry. Guess they’s some good people down thar, but I hain’t never seed ’em. They don’t never come up hyer. I _reckin_ you kin stay, but I can’t give ye no bed all to yerself; an’ I tell ye now, ye needn’t to ax it.” Meanwhile, Madame Calico had admitted him and led the way through a side door into an adjoining room which served as a lounging hall for guests, whether “by the day” or “by the week.” Having learned how to make allowances for the moods of hotels, landlords and landladies, he had followed meekly, without invitation. By “the dim and flaring lamp,” he now caught the outlines of a half-finished stairway winding up to the garret. There was no railing to this gangway; safety consisted in keeping away from the brink. Madame Calico stood on the third step, her countenance and kerosene jet beaming contemptuously down upon the upturned face of the hesitating guest at the bottom. “Madam,” he asked, hearing, as he thought, a chorus of snores winding down the gangway, “does anybody else sleep up there?” “No, they hain’t nobody hardly now, sence the mill ’uz shot down.” Rather an evasive answer. “How many?” he inquired. “The mill is shot down, an’ most uv the hands has quit work, an’ they hain’t many stays hyer now.”