An hour later, Mrs. Tibbets tiptoed down into the cellar, with a steaming covered dish in her hands. She knocked on the door of Vandor's room, but there was no response. "Oh, I've missed him," she complained aloud. "But maybe he's just stepped out for cigarettes or something. I can leave it for him." She set the dish on the closed lid of the wooden box, and went back into the cellar proper, searching in the heaped cartons until she found a blank sheet of paper. "Dear Mister Thobal," she scribbled, "if this has gotten cold when you return, feel free to use the stove to heat it up. Mrs. Leonetti, one of your fellow roomers, made it. It's really quite good, if you like Italian food. It's got a bit too much _garlic_ in it for my taste." Smiling, she signed the note, and went back upstairs. She was awakened just before dawn by a hand upon her shoulder, shaking her violently. She sat up in bed, very startled, and flicked on the bedside lamp. "_Mis_ter Thobal!" she said in horror, drawing the bed-clothes about her, "How _dare_ you come into a lady's _bedroom_ at--" she consulted her alarm clock "--at four in the _morning_, and--" "Mrs. Tibbets!" he interrupted in an anguished voice that went straight to her woman's heart, "would you _kindly_ come down to my room and remove that _garlic_-stinking thing from my _cof_--my horticulture box?" "At four in the morning?" she said, testily. "Look--" he said, quivering with some emotion she could not fathom, "Dawn will be breaking soon, and I'd _like_ to be asleep when it does. I can't sleep at all once it's bright out." "Well," she said, slipping into her flannel robe despite her misgivings, "can't you remove it yourself?" "No--" he said, miserably, "I'm _allergic_ to garlic. I appreciate the thought, but would you please remove that plate from my room. The very redolence of that odor, even when you've taken it away, will make me ill for the rest of the day. _Please_ hurry!" "Oh, _all_ right, _all_ right," she said, huffily, leading the way downstairs, with Vandor Thobal looming after her like an ominous black cloud. "Well, I hope you're happier now," she said, holding the plate in her hands as she stood outside the door of Vandor's tiny room. "If the smell is going to bother you, I can bring you down a bottle of Airwick--" "No, please," he protested, his white face tinged with greenish gray. "You've done enough already. Just--" he darted an anxious glance behind him, where the grimy windowpane was beginning to glow pink, "Just go upstairs and padlock the door. I've got to get to _sleep_!" "Maybe if I brought you some flowers--" she began. "No!" he wailed. "No Airwick, no flowers, _nothing_! I'll be getting along fine, if you'll just leave!" "Well.... If you're sure--" she said. "Positive!" he said, though his voice sounded oddly weak. There was a reddish glow in the room from the tiny window. "Now ... please ... go...." His voice faded.