The old man was an artist. His eyes shone with that everlasting thrift so characteristic of his race, and somehow I could not get away without handing him another quarter. Then, receiving his instructions as to getting into the house, I took up that part of my labor. I managed to keep myself separated from the piles of ashes and tin cans until I reached a rear door. The house was on the corner and was a basement affair, the first part being brick up to the level of the street, from that on up to the top it was frame. The house had been built before the street was filled in, so that when that operation took place one side and one end of the brick wall, being the parts of the house that were exposed to the street, had become submerged in a mixture of old bricks, pieces of bottles, mud and other rubbish that was from time to time scraped off the business portion of the street. It was difficult to distinguish my hard and vigorous rapping from the violent rattle of the door. Finally I heard a sound as though something was being dragged across the floor, then the door was pulled half way open and I was asked to enter. A tin lamp with a badly smoked chimney (or rather part of a chimney, for a large hole in the side represented nearly one-third of the surface) caused flickering, gloomy shadows to move about the room; a rough pine box with shelves served for a cupboard, in which there were a few battered tin pans, some broken handled knives and bent forks; a pile of straw in the corner, with some soiled remnants of blankets and quilts served for a bed. The warmth of the room was furnished by a badly broken cook stove; pieces of wood and coal mixed, laid on the grate, while in the oven and on the top of the stove were frozen chunks of mud with small pieces of coal all through them; wood covered with snow and ice, which had been put there to thaw out, so as to be usable; the formation of the sizzling steam as the water ran from this store of fuel did nothing to add a pleasant odor to that which arose from the conglomeration of filth which had been gathered from street and alley and was being roasted until it should give up bits of coal, which were as rare and precious to the half frozen inmates of this hole in the ground, as the bright shining metal is to the gold miner as he sees his piles of quartz crushed in the process of separation. “Is this Mrs. Densmore?” I asked, as I shook the snow from my long ulster. “No, this ain’t Mis Dinsmore,” growled the voice of the woman who stood in front of me. “I am sorry,” said I, “for I wanted to find her very much.” “Well, I guess you won’t find her.” “Can you tell me where she is?” “No, an’ if I could I wouldn’t. What do you want of her, anyway? Hain’t she had enough trouble, without some new thing bobbin’ up?” “I fear you misunderstand me; I want to see her for her own good.”