But Polly was rambling on in a new vein. “When Ernestine returns, she will take you to Caleb’s house; then you’ll see how a famous novelist who has commercialized himself lives—and you won’t like it! Every June Ernestine visits Caleb and generally takes me as ballast—sort of grand duchess conferring a favor, you know. The rest of the year, unless Caleb entertains, he has to come to her whenever she will have him, starved of heart, yet loyal. (Of course if people care they do stay loyal) ... but wait until you see Caleb’s sleek establishment and contrast it with Collin’s transplanted paradise.” They jumped off the ’bus steps and made their way down a narrow side street which was most distressingly dirty to Thurley’s mind, reaching a dilapidated brownstone-front house with “Rooms for Rent” in the parlor windows. Skipping up a fire escape on the outside, with Thurley toiling after, Polly opened a bit of a window on the top floor, jumped down inside while the boards creaked perilously and then assisted Thurley to do likewise. “I never go up the inside way unless it is winter,” she explained, “because every poor devil would stop to ask for a loan. I can’t refuse unless I’m stony broke and I can’t afford to part with the little I have. Of course they can’t pay back, poor dears! So the fire escape affords an excellent subterfuge and no one’s feelings are hurt. I want to take Collin a book on woodcuts; I found it at an old bookstore the other day.” She was prowling about a dusty secretary, opening drawers and failing to close them. Thurley stood in the center of the room aghast at Polly’s attic. Ernestine and Caleb had prepared her for it, saying with almost reproach that she, Thurley, was missing the glorious camaraderie with failures, she was the proverbial jewel in the rough who was taken to an expert lapidary, cut, polished and placed in platinum without any transitional stage! And she would do well to learn more of Polly’s life so as to glean the atmosphere of optimistic struggle, humorous cares and sometimes indescribable pathos. So much Thurley did in the moment she waited for Polly to find the book—a book costing a week’s earnings! The room was badly in need of repair; the roof sloped down so Thurley had to crouch if she moved but a foot either way—it reminded her of Betsey Pilrig’s attic. There was a cot made into a divan with a turkey red covering and pillows, a scrap of a rag rug, an easel, for Polly did commercial drawings fairly well, a table one confusion of doll furniture and china dolls dressed in wisps of silk, satin and burlap. Polly explained this was her “tryout”—when she was planning scenes in her opera, she had the puppets assume positions so as to gauge the effect. She was so serious about the matter that Thurley was forced to conceal a laugh as she said the idea was excellent.