But he scarcely looked like one who would be wanting to see so small an apartment, he now felt, tall and robust and prosperous as he was. Still might he not be thinking of buying this place? Or renting quarters for a servant or a relative? Who should know? What difference did it make? Why should he care? He rang the bell, thinking of the small, stupid, unfriendly and self-defensive woman who, twenty or more years before, had come up from the basement below, wiping her hands on a gingham apron and staring at them querulously. How well he remembered her—and how unfriendly she had always remained in spite of their efforts to be friendly, because they had no tips to give her. She could not be here any longer, of course; no, this one coming was unlike her in everything except stupidity and grossness. But they were alike in that, well enough. This one was heavy, beefy. She would make almost two of the other one. “The rooms,” he had almost said “apartment,” “on the top floor—may I see them?” “Dey are only t’ree an’ bat’—fourteen by der mont’.” “Yes, I know,” he now added almost sadly. So they had not raised the rent in all this time, although the city had grown so. Evidently this region had become worse, not better. “I’ll look at them, if you please, just the same,” he went on, feeling that the dull face before him was wondering why he should be looking at them at all. “Vait; I getcha der key. You can go up py yerself.” He might have known that she would never climb any four flights save under compulsion. She returned presently, and he made his way upward, remembering how the fat husband of the former janitress had climbed up promptly every night at ten, if you please, putting out the wee lights of gas on the return trip (all but a thin flame on the second floor: orders from the landlord, of course), and exclaiming as he did so, at each landing, “Ach Gott, I go me up py der secon’ floor ant make me der lights out. Ach Gott, I go me py der t’ird floor ant make me der lights out. Ach Gott, I go me py der fourt’ floor ant make me der lights out,” and so on until he reached the fifth, where they lived. How often he had listened to him, puffing and moaning as he came!