Mr. Gooley's first thought was: “What can any one want with a dead man?” For he looked upon himself as already dead. There came a second knock, more peremptory than the first, and he said mechanically, “Come in!” It would have to be postponed a few minutes, that was all. The door opened, and in walked his landlady. She was a tall and bulky and worried-looking woman, who wore a faded blond wig that was always askew, and Mr. Gooley was afraid of her. Her wig was more askew than usual when she entered, and he gathered from this that she was angry about something--why the devil must she intrude her trivial mundane anger upon himself, a doomed man? It was not seemly. “Mr. Gooley,” she began severely, without preamble, “I have always looked on you as a gentleman.” “Yes?” he murmured dully. “But you ain't,” she continued. “You ain't no better than a cheat.” He shrugged his shoulders patiently. He supposed that she was right about it. He owed her three weeks' room rent, and he was going to die and beat her out of it. But he couldn't help it. “It ain't the room rent,” she went on, as if vaguely cognizant of the general trend of his thoughts. “It ain't the room rent alone. You either pay me that or you don't pay me that, and if you don't, out you go. But while you are here, you must conduct yourself as a gentleman should!” “Well,” murmured Mr. Gooley, “haven't I?” And the cockroach, perched on the gas jet above the landlady's head, and apparently listening to this conversation, moved several of his legs, as if in surprise. “You have not!” said the landlady, straightening her wig. “What have I done, Mrs. Hinkley?” asked Mr. Gooley humbly. And Old Cockroach Hammil from his perch also made signs of inquiry. “What have you done! What have you done!” cried Mrs. Hinkley. “As if the man didn't know what he had done I You've been stealin' my gas, that's what you have been doin'--stealin', I say, and there's no other word for it!” Mr. Gooley started guiltily. He had not been stealing her gas, but it came over him with a shock for the first time that that was what he had, in effect, been planning to do. The cockroach, as if it also felt convicted of sin, gave the gas jet a glance of horror and moved up the rod to the ceiling, where it continued to listen. “Stealin'!” repeated Mrs. Hinkley. “That's what it is, nothin' else but stealin'. You don't ever stop to think when you use one of them gas plates to cook in your room, Mr. Gooley--which it is expressly forbid and agreed on that no cooking shall be done in these rooms when they're rented to you--that it's my gas you're using, and that I have to pay for it, and that it's just as much stealin' as if you was to put your hand into my pocket-book and take my money!”