“That is what that blondined party in the next room had on to her gas plate--the nerve of her! Strung from the gas jet clear across the room to the window sill. And when I throwed her out, Mr. Gooley, she wouldn't pay her rent, and I took this here revolver to part pay it. What kind of a woman is it, Mr. Gooley, that has a revolver in her room, and a loaded one, too?” Just then the doorbell rang in the dim lower regions, and she left the room to answer it. And Mr. Gooley sat and looked at the knife, with which he might so easily stab himself, and at the gas cord, with which he might so easily hang himself, and at the loaded revolver, with which he might so easily shoot himself. He looked also at the bowl of soup. He had the strength to reflect--a meal is a meal. But _after_ that meal, what? Penniless, broken in health, friendless, a failure--why prolong it for another twenty-four hours? A meal would prolong it, but that was all a meal _would_ do--and after that would come the suffering and the despair and the end to be faced all over again. Was he man enough to take the pistol and do it now? Or did true manhood lie the other way? Was he man enough to drink the soup, and dare to live and hope? Just then the cockroach, which had climbed into the window and upon the washstand, made for the bowl of soup. “Here!” cried Mr. Gooley, grabbing the bowl in both hands, “Old Man Hammil! Get away from that soup!” And the bowl being in his hands, he drank. “What do you mean by Old Man Hammil?” It was Mrs. Hinkley who spoke. She stood again in the doorway, with a letter in her hands and a look of wonder on her face. Mr. Gooley set down the soup bowl. By an effort of the will he had only drunk half the liquid. He had heard somewhere that those who are suffering from starvation had better go slow at first when they get hold of food again. And he already felt better, warmed and resurrected, from the first gulp. “What,” demanded the landlady, “do you mean by yelling out about Old Man Hammil?” “Why,” said Mr. Gooley, feeling foolish, and looking it, “I was talking to that cockroach there. He looks sort of like some one I knew when I was a kid, by the name of Hammil--Archibald Hammil.” “_Where_ was you a kid?” asked Mrs. Hinkley. “In a place called Mapletown--Mapletown, Illinois,” said Mr. Gooley. “There's where I knew Old Man Hammil.” “Well,” said the landlady, “when you go back there you won't see him. He's dead. He died a week ago. This letter tells it. I was his niece. And the old man went and left me his hardware store. I never expected it. But all his kids is dead--it seems he outlived 'em all, and he was nearly ninety when he passed away.” “Well,” said Mr. Gooley, “I don't remember you.” “You wouldn't,” said the landlady. “You must have been in short pants when I ran away from home and married the hardware drummer. But I'll bet you the old-timers in that burg still remembers it against me!”