The tour of installation ended, David started for his old home to begin the removal, armload at a time, of his few belongings. As he walked among the school-hurrying children, over snow grimed by ten thousand feet, he felt dazed for fear that this world of hope he had entered might suddenly vanish. Failure had been his so constantly that this beginning of success seemed unreal. He dared allow himself to feel only a tentative exultation. At the entrance of his old tenement he met Kate Morgan coming out. He had not seen her since she had glided past him through Mr. Allen's hall, suit-case in hand. He stopped, at a loss what to do or say, wondering how she would receive him. "Good afternoon," he said, heavily. She paled, looked him squarely in the face and passed without a word. With a pang he watched her walk stiffly away. Her friendship, save for Tom's, was the only friendship he had known since he had left prison. Now it was lost. An hour later, as he was coming from his room with his last armload, he met her again. She sneered in his face. "Coward!" she snapped out and brushed him by. He called after her, but she marched on and into her door without looking back. David had thought his "rent" would be a single room, but it had proved to be a five-room flat in the basement. In the front room of this, during the odd moments his afternoon's work allowed him, he arranged his belongings, to which Mr. Rogers had added a bed, a table and a couple of chairs. When all was in order he found the room looked bare, beyond his needs. After all, his "rent" might as well have been but a single room. Little good to him were the four rooms behind, locked and vacant. Darkness had fallen and he was sitting in his room wondering how he would live through the month that must elapse before his salary would be due, when Mr. Rogers came in. "It has occurred to me that perhaps you could use a little ready money," Mr. Rogers said in his low voice, and he laid several bills upon David's table. "There's one month's wages in advance." And before David had recovered from his surprise, Mr. Rogers was out of the room. While David was still staring at this money, there was another knock. He opened the door upon the Mayor of Avenue A. The Mayor walked in and lowered himself into the one rocking-chair. "Well, I see you've landed with Rogers," he called out, as though David were a block away. "You'll find Rogers quiet, but the real thing. He's got a heart that really beats." He looked about. "Just usin' this one room, I see. What're you doin' with the others?" "Nothing." "Why don't you rent 'em?" "D'you think I can?" "Can? You can't help it. Why, only yesterday a family was askin' me to help 'em find a cheap flat. Le's see how much them four rooms would be worth. I pay thirty a month up on the second floor; this might fetch sixteen or eighteen. You've got the best room; take that off and say--well, say twelve a month. How'd that suit you?"