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you get that clock? Where did you get that clock?
That's new to me. Where did that come from?" "That cuckoo clock?"
inquired Travis, with a stare. "Condy Rivers, you've been here and in
this room at least twice a week for the last year and a half, and that
clock, and no other, has always hung there." But already Condy had
forgotten or lost interest in the clock. "Is that so? is that so?" he
murmured absent-mindedly, seating himself at the table. Mr. Bessemer
was murmuring: "That clock's a little fast. I can not make that clock
keep time. Victorine has lost the key. I have to wind it with a
monkey-wrench. Now I'll try some more beans. Maggie has put in too
much pepper. I'll have to have a new key made to-morrow." "Hey?
Yes--yes. Is that so?" answered Condy Rivers, bewildered, wishing to
be polite, yet unable to follow the old man's mutterings. "He's not
talking to you," remarked Travis, without lowering her voice. "You
know how Papum goes on. He won't hear a word you say. Well, I read
your story in this morning's 'Times.'" A few moments later, while
Travers and Condy were still discussing this story, Mr. Bessemer rose.
"Well, Mr. Rivers," he announced, "I guess I'll say good-night. Come,
Snooky." "Yes, take her with you, Papum," said Travis. "She'll go to
sleep on the lounge here if you don't. Howard, have you got your
lessons for to-morrow?" It appeared that he had not. Snooky whined to
stay up a little longer, but at last consented to go with her father. They

all bade Condy good-night and took themselves away, Howard
lingering a moment in the door in the hope of the nickel he dared not
ask for. Maggie reappeared to clear away the table. "Let's go in the
parlor," suggested Travis, rising. "Don't you want to?" The parlor was
the front room overlooking the street, and was reached by the long hall
that ran the whole length of the flat, passing by the door of each one of
its eight rooms in turn. Travis preceded Condy, and turned up one of
the burners in colored globe of the little brass chandelier. The parlor
was a small affair, peopled by a family of chairs and sofas robed in
white drugget. A gold-and-white effect had been striven for throughout
the room. The walls had been tinted instead of papered, and bunches of
hand-painted pink flowers tied up with blue ribbons straggled from one
corner of the ceiling. Across one angle of the room straddled a brass
easel upholding a crayon portrait of Travis at the age of nine, "enlarged
from a photograph." A yellow drape ornamented one corner of the
frame, while another drape of blue depended from one end of the
mantelpiece. The piano, upon which nobody ever played, balanced the
easel in an opposite corner. Over the mantelpiece hung in a gilded
frame a steel engraving of Priscilla and John Alden; and on the mantel
itself two bisque figures of an Italian fisher boy and girl kept company
with the clock, a huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, that never
was known to go. But at the right of the fireplace, and balancing the
tuft of pampa-grass to the left, was an inverted section of a sewer-pipe
painted blue and decorated with daisies. Into it was thrust a sheaf of
cat-tails, gilded, and tied with a pink ribbon. Travis dropped upon the
shrouded sofa, and Condy set himself carefully down on one of the frail
chairs with its spindling golden legs, and they began to talk. Condy had
taken her to the theatre the Monday night of that week, as had been his
custom ever since he had known her well, and there was something left
for them to say on that subject. But in ten minutes they had exhausted it.
An engagement of a girl known to both of them had just been
announced. Condy brought that up, and kept conversation going for
another twenty minutes, and then filled in what threatened to be a gap
by telling her stories of the society reporters, and how they got inside
news by listening to telephone party wires for days at a time. Travis'
condemnation of this occupied another five or ten minutes; and so what
with this and with that they reached nine o'clock. Then decidedly the

evening began to drag. It was too early to go. Condy could find no
good excuse for takng himself away, and, though Travis was
good-natured enough, and met him more than half-way, their talk
lapsed, and lapsed, and lapsed. The breaks became more numerous and
lasted longer. Condy began to wonder if he was boring her. No sooner
had the suspicion entered his head than it