CHAPTER IV NEWS He rose early from a restless bed, dressed, and made a cup of coffee. Afterward he selected the clothing he meant to retain, and locked the other in his trunk. A little after twelve o’clock Adler came in, accompanied by a dealer from Chatham Street, to whom Harcourt exhibited his trunk of wearing apparel. The dealer looked carefully over the whole assortment, and then for a gentleman’s wardrobe worth at least two hundred dollars, trunk included, offered—fifty. This was indeed a sacrifice, and Adler loudly protested; but Harcourt was anxious to conclude the bargain and be off on his journey. So he took the fifty dollars cash and delivered over the trunk, which the dealer agreed to send for, and did send for in the course of the afternoon. Adler went back to his work. “I shall start for Washington by the night train,” Harcourt said, on seeing him out. “All right; that leaves at nine-thirty. I shall drop in here to see you off. But what about your room?” “I shall leave it just as it is, for I expect to return to it in a week or ten days’ time.” “Glad to hear that,” said Adler, as he hurried away. Harcourt went back to his room and packed his traveling bag. When all his preparations for the journey were completed Harcourt went and rapped on the door of his neighbor’s room. The monotonous thumper-thumper-thumper-thumper of the sewing machine stopped while she arose and came and opened the door. She looked surprised and pleased at the appearance of her visitor in his genteel morning suit. It was the first time he had ever come to her door. “I am going away for a few days, Mrs. Moss, to see my mother. Before I say good-by let me thank you again for all your great kindness to me,” he said. “I wish you would not make so much of a simple matter of duty, done with much satisfaction. But come in and sit down, and tell me all about it, if you have time,” she answered. “Thank you. I have not much time, but I would like to come in,” he answered. He followed her, and took the chair she offered. It was a large, clean room, barely furnished with a table and four chairs, a corner cupboard, a cooking stove, a sewing machine, a chest of drawers, and a little white bed; but the neatness and cleanliness of the place could not have been surpassed. “There is not much to tell,” he said. “My mother is old—quite old, for I was her youngest born, the child of her age. I am all that she has left. I fear that my long silence in the illness has made her painfully anxious, and I think the best and soonest way to alleviate that anxiety will be to go to her at once, instead of writing.” “I think you are quite right. Indeed, you should never have left her.” “I did not willingly, but ‘necessity knows no law.’” “Ah! true, now long will you be gone?” “Not over ten days.” “And your room?”