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jair. Well, idt is goodt for
zore eyess. How didt you findt where I lif?
"They told me at Maronis," said March. He tried to keep his eyes on
Lindaus face, and not see the discomfort of the room, but he was aware
of the shabby and frowsy bedding, the odor of stale smoke, and the pipes
and tobacco shreds mixed with the books and manuscripts strewn over the
leaf of the writing-desk. He laid down on the mass the pile of foreign
magazines he had brought under his arm. "They gave me another address
first."
"Yes. I have chust gome here," said Lindau. "Idt is not very coy, Neigh?"
"It might be gayer," March admitted, with a smile. "Still," he added,
soberly, "a good many people seem to live in this part of the town.
Apparently they die here, too, Lindau. There is crape on your outside
door. I didnt know but it was for you."
"Nodt this time," said Lindau, in the same humor. "Berhaps some other
time. We geep the ondertakers bratty puzy down here."
"Well," said March, "undertakers must live, even if the rest of us have
to die to let them." Lindau laughed, and March went on: "But Im glad it
isnt your funeral, Lindau. And you say youre not sick, and so I dont
see why we shouldnt come to business."
"Pusiness?" Lindau lifted his eyebrows. "You gome on pusiness?"
"And pleasure combined," said March, and he went on to explain the
service he desired at Lindaus hands.
The old man listened with serious attention, and with assenting nods that
culminated in a spoken expression of his willingness to undertake the
translations. March waited with a sort of mechanical expectation of his
gratitude for the work put in his way, but nothing of the kind came from
Lindau, and March was left to say, "Well, everything is understood, then;
and I dont know that I need add that if you ever want any little advance
on the work--"
"I will ask you," said Lindau, quietly, "and I thank you for that. But I
can wait; I tont needt any money just at bresent." As if he saw some
appeal for greater frankness in, Marchs eye, he went on: "I tidnt gome
here begause I was too boor to lif anywhere else, and I tont stay in
pedt begause I couldnt haf a fire to geep warm if I wanted it. Im nodt
zo padt off as Marmontel when he went to Paris. Im a lidtle loaxurious,
that is all. If I stay in pedt its zo I can fling money away on
somethings else. Heigh?"
"But what are you living here for, Lindau?" March smiled at the irony
lurking in Lindaus words.
"Well, you zee, I foundt I was begoming a lidtle too moch of an
aristograt. I hadt a room oap in Creenvidge Willage, among dose pig pugs
over on the West Side, and I foundt"--Liudaus voice lost its jesting
quality, and his face darkened--"that I was beginning to forget the
boor!"
"I should have thought," said March, with impartial interest, "that you
might have seen poverty enough, now and then, in Greenwich Village to
remind you of its existence."
"Nodt like here," said Lindau. "Andt you must zee it all the dtime--zee
it, hear it, smell it, dtaste it--or you forget it. That is what I gome
here for. I was begoming a ploated aristograt. I thought I was nodt like
these beople down here, when I gome down once to look aroundt; I thought
I must be somethings else, and zo I zaid I better take myself in time,
and I gome here among my brothers--the becears and the thiefs!" A noise
made itself heard in the next room, as if the door were furtively opened,
and a faint sound of tiptoeing and of hands clawing on a table.
"Thiefs!" Lindau repeated, with a shout. "Lidtle thiefs, that gabture
your breakfast. Ah! ha! ha!" A wild scurrying of feet, joyous cries and
tittering, and a slamming door followed upon his explosion, and he
resumed in the silence: "Idt is the children cot pack from school. They
gome and steal what I leaf there on my daple. Idts one of our lidtle
chokes; we onderstand one another; thats all righdt. Once the gobbler in
the other room there he used to chase em; he couldnt onderstand their
lidtle tricks. Now dot gopplers teadt, and he tont chase em any more.
He was a Bohemian. Gindt of grazy, I cuess."
"Well, its a sociable existence," March suggested. "But Hazard Of New Fortunes page 81 Hazard Of New Fortunes page 83 | ||||