“Gas,” continued Mrs. Hinkley, “is gas. And gas costs money. I hadn't orter jumped on you the way I did, Mr. Gooley, but gas plates has got to be what you might call corns on my brain, Mr. Gooley. They're my sensitive spot, Mr. Gooley. If I was to tell you the half of what I have had to suffer from gas plates during the last thirty years, Mr. Gooley, you wouldn't believe it! There's them that will cheat you one way and there's them that will cheat you another, but the best of them will cheat you with gas plates, Mr. Gooley. With the exception of yourself, Mr. Gooley, I ain't had a lodger in thirty years that wouldn't rob me on the gas. Some don't think it's stealin', Mr. Gooley, when they steal gas. And some of 'em don't care if it is. But there ain't none of 'em ever thinks what a _landlady_ goes through with, year in and year out.” She paused for a moment, and then, overcome with self-pity, she began to sniffle. “And my rent's been raised on me again, Mr. Gooley! And I'm a month behind! And if I ain't come across with the two months, the old month and the new, by day after to-morrow, out I goes; and it means the poorhouse as fur as I can see, because I don't know anything else but keeping lodgers, and I got no place to go!” She gathered her apron up and wiped her eyes and nose with it. The cockroach on the footboard wiped his front set of feet across his face sympathetically. “I got it all ready but fifteen dollars,” continued Mrs. Hinkley, “and then in comes the gas bill this morning with _arrears_ onto it. It is them _arrears_, Mr. Gooley, that always knocks me out! If it wasn't for them arrears, I could get along. And now I got to pay out part of the rent money onto the gas bill, with them arrears on it, or the gas will be shut off this afternoon.” The pain in Mr. Gooley's head was getting worse. He wished she would go. He hated hearing her troubles. But she continued: “It's the way them arrears come onto the bill, Mr. Gooley, that has got me sore. About a week before you come here again to live, Mr. Gooley, there was a fellow stole fifteen dollars worth of my gas all at once. He went and killed himself, Mr. Gooley, and he used my gas to do it with. It leaked out of two jets for forty-eight hours up on the top floor, before the door was busted in and the body was found, and it came to fifteen dollars, and all on account of that man's cussedness, Mr. Gooley, I will likely get turned out into the street, and me sixty years old and no place to turn.” Mr. Gooley sat up in bed feebly and looked at her. She _was_ in real trouble--in about as much trouble as he was. The cockroach walked meditatively up and down the footboard, as if thinking it over very seriously. Mrs. Hinkley finally rose. “Mr. Gooley,” she said, regarding him sharply, “you look kind o' done up!” “Uh-huh,” said Mr. Gooley. She lingered in the room for a few seconds more, irresolutely, and then departed.