The darkness of night wrapped it now. As it was early a light within shone out dimly through two narrow panes of glass flanking the hall door. He let himself in and mounted a dirtily carpeted stairway. The place smelled evilly of old cooking and the smoke of many and various cigarettes, cigars and pipes. It was a man’s rooming-house, and the men evidently smoked where and what they listed. Essex had no idea who they were and had seen only one of them: a man on the same floor with him who, he surmised, by the occasional boisterousness of his entrances, frequently came home drunk. His room was one of the best in the house, on the front, and with a large bay window commanding the street. It was fairly comfortable and well furnished, and the draft of soft, chill air that crossed it from the opened window kept it fresh. Essex, after lighting the gases in the pendent chandelier, bent and kindled the fire laid in the grate. Like many foreigners he found San Francisco cold, and after the manner of his bringing up would no more have denied himself a fire when he was chilly, than a glass of wine when he was thirsty. Different nations have their different extravagances, and Essex’s French boyhood had stamped him with respect for the little comforts of that intelligent race. He pulled up an easy-chair and sat down in front of the small blaze, with his hands out. Its warmth was pleasant, and he stayed thus, thinking. Presently he smiled slightly, his ear having caught the sounds of his fellow lodger’s stumbling ascent of the stairs. The man was evidently drunk again, and he wondered vaguely how he ever managed to mount the terrace steps with the list to starboard. The lodger’s door opened, shut, and there was silence. Essex--an earnest reader--was soon deep in his book. From this he was interrupted by a step in the passage and a light knock on the door. In response to his “Come in,” the door opened hesitantly, and the man from across the hall thrust in his head. It was a head of wild gray hair, with an old yellow face, seamed and shriveled beneath it. The eyes, which were beadily dark and set close to the nose, were bloodshot, the lips slack and uncertain. A very dirty hand was curled round the edge of the door. “Well, what is it?” said Essex. “I’ve lost my matches agin,” said the man, in a whiningly apologetic tone. “There are some,” said Essex, designating his box on the mantelpiece. “Take what you want.” The stranger shambled in, and after scratching about the box with a tremulous hand, secured a bunch. Essex looked at him with cynical interest. He was miserably dressed, dirty and ragged. He walked with an apologetic slouch, as if continually expecting a kick in the rear. He was evidently very drunk, and the odor of the liquids he had imbibed compassed him in an ambulating reek. “Thanks to you, Doc,” he said, as he went out. “So long.”