Eight subway stations from Harlem and up four flights of stairs, Dot found her ideal apartment. Not right away, of course. First there had been a week of terrible discouragement and unbelievable weariness. But that was forgotten now. She and Eddie were firmly ensconced in their home.
Dot had liked the house at first sight. She had admired the big orange lights which hung outside and the way the building was divided into two parts. There was space for fifty families in the building, twenty-five on each side. The janitress was a terrible woman and easily nettled, but one couldn't have everything—and the apartment was so adorable.
There were five apartments on each floor. The Collinses had the middle one, and it lay behind a lovely reddishbrown door. Of course it was on the top floor, but then neither Dot nor Eddie minded the stairs. Dyckman Street was just around the corner and Two Hundred and Seventh Street a few blocks away.
What Dot liked best about the apartment was that it had no hall. She hated apartments with halls. Nobody would be mean enough to count the place which could be crossed with one large step a hall.
And the living-room was right there, in front of the one large step. Dot thought it a very large living-room, considering that her apartment was only three rooms. The room was thirteen feet by eleven and had one nice, large window which looked on the street. It annoyed her a little that she couldn't see much of the street because the gray wings of the house jutted out on either side, but she con-
