alleviating touch of comedy. In the end, too, the debt was paid. Twelve months later--it seemed a period of years--Kay got suddenly from a brother £100--an enormous sum; while I had twice received from my brother, God bless him! post-office orders for £10. This was a long time ahead yet, but Mrs. Bernstein eventually received her due with our sincerest thanks. She had moved to another house in Lafayette Place by then. We paid up and left her, Kay going to one boarding-house, I to another.
The payment in full, at any rate, relieved my conscience, for the way we bullied that poor old Jewess was inexcusable. The excuse I found seemed adequate at the time, however--we must frighten her or be turned out. Each time she pressed for payment, out came my heavy artillery; imaginary insects, threats of newspaper articles, bluster, bluff and bullying of every description, often reducing her to tears, and a final indignant volley to the effect that "If you don't trust us, we had better go; in fact, if this occurs again, we shall go!" More than once we pretended to pack up; more than once I announced that we had found other rooms; "Next Monday I shall pay you the few dollars we owe, and leave your house, and you will read an account of your conduct in the Evening Sun, Mrs. Bernstein." She invariably came to heel. "I ask my hospand" had no sequel. By frightening and bullying her, I stayed on and on and on, owing months' and months' rent and breakfast; our ascendancy over her was complete. It was, none the less, a shameful business, for at the time it seemed doubtful if we should ever be in a position to pay the kind old woman anything at all....
The fifteen months I now spent reporting for the Evening Sun at fifteen dollars a week lie in the mind like a smudged blur of dreary wretchedness, a few incidents only standing out.... The desire for the drug was conquered, the old doctor was dead, Kay had obtained a position with a firm in Exchange Place, where he made a small, uncertain income in a business that was an absolute mystery to me, the buying and selling of exchange
between banks. Louis B---- had meanwhile
