"Well," she said, trying to brush off the mildewed folding cot in the corner of the room and raising a cloud of fleas from the damp dust on the mattress, "all right. It'll be ten dollars a week." Vandor Thobal made a short, snappy bow, and clicked his heels slightly. "Of course," he said, reaching inside his cloak, and coming out with a crisp new bill. "This should take care of it for awhile." Mrs. Tibbets adjusted her glasses in the dim cellar and looked at the bill. "Five hundred dollars?" she said, with a little squeak in her voice. "Why, that's almost a year's rent!" "Am I to understand there is a limit to my stay?" asked Vandor. "Why, no," she said, quickly. "It's just that--I mean--Nobody gives a year's--No, of course not. No limit at all. Stay as long as you like." A little giddy at her good fortune, she rushed upstairs, and had automatically almost locked the cellar door when she remembered that her new tenant was still downstairs. "You don't have anything of value down there, do you?" she called, leaning over the stairs from the kitchen door. "I mean, you have no way of locking your room...." There was no answer. "Mister Thobal?" she called, a little less heartily. Still no answer. Finally, cautiously, she made her way back down to the tiny room at the back of the cellar. It was empty. "Mister Tho-bal!" she sing-songed, peering around in the semi-gloom of the shadowy cellar. She went to the short flight of stone stairs and looked up at the slanting cellar doors. Hesitantly, she reached up a hand toward them and gave a tiny shove. The doors flew outward with a loud slamming noise, and she gasped and drew back. Vandor was standing there above her, silhouetted against the night sky, his eyes glowing redly and nostrils flaring as he saw her there. He was carrying a large, ugly wooden box in his arms. "Oh!" she said. "Is that your luggage?" "... Yes. My--er--trunk," he said, starting slowly downstairs, with his burden, nearly as wide as the stone steps. Mrs. Tibbets stepped aside to let him pass, and as he did so, entering through the door to his room, a tiny trickle of dirt sprinkled on the floor from under the edge of the box's lid. * * * * * "Goodness gracious!" she said, following him into his room curiously, "Whatever have you got in there? It seems so odd." Vandor set the box against the cellar wall and turned to her, his face white and angry. "Madam, that is my own personal business, if you don't mind!" Mrs. Tibbets shrugged. "Well, I just saw a dribble of dirt coming out of it, and thought perhaps I could sweep it out for you--" Vandor's face went--if anything--whiter. "_No!_" he roared, in an almost terrified voice. "I--I mean, that won't be necessary. It's _supposed_ to be full of earth. I--I'm a sort of--of botanist. I grow things." "Hmmph," Mrs. Tibbets sniffed. "You won't be able to grow anything but mushrooms, down here!"