Could you let me one for the next three months?'
The stranger was astonished. He regarded the young man with an uneasy
smile.
'You are joking, sir.'
'Not a bit of it. Is the thing quite impossible? Are all the rooms in too
bad a state?'
'I won't say _that_,' replied the other cautiously, still eyeing his
interlocutor with surprised glances. 'The upper rooms are really not so
bad--that is to say, from a humble point of view. I--I have been looking at
them just now. You really mean, sir--?'
'I'm quite in earnest, I assure you,' cried Goldthorpe cheerily. 'You see
I'm tolerably well dressed still, but I've precious little money, and I
want to eke out the little I've got for about three months. I'm writing a
book. I think I shall manage to sell it when it's done, but it'll take me
about three months yet. I don't care what sort of place I live in, so long
as it's quiet. Couldn't we come to terms?'
The listener's visage seemed to grow rounder in progressive astonishment;
his eyes declared an emotion akin to awe; his little mouth shaped itself as
if about to whistle.
'A book, sir? You are writing a book? You are a literary man?'
'Well, a beginner. I have poverty on my side, you see.
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