There were two occupants of the room. One, presently identified as Johnny Sanger, was seated in an easy chair, a book in his lap and his slippered feet on the edge of the study table. He was a rather large youth of sixteen years, with a somewhat flat face, prominent brown eyes, a large mouth, and hair of a coppery brown. At the other side of the table sat Shill, tall, narrow, dark-complexioned, and black-haired. Both boys looked surprised when they saw who their visitors were, and as Sanger dropped his feet to the floor and got out of his chair, his expression did not suggest overwhelming delight. Introductions were quickly effected, and the three visitors found seats.

The room, which was poorly lighted by a student’s lamp, was larger than appeared from outside, and although the ceiling sloped down on[217] either side to within four feet of the floor, there was a good deal of room there. Two cot beds occupied one end of the room, a washstand was tucked under a dormer window, there was a study table, several chairs, two trunks and a bookcase, and although everything looked very cheap, there was an air of hominess about the place that the visitors found pleasant.

“I hear you fellows have got to move,” said Bert presently.

“Yes, hang it all!” answered Sanger. “Just when you find a nice place something goes and happens!”

“When do you go?” Harry inquired politely.

“Last of next week,” said Sanger. His roommate was not communicative, but contented himself with observing the callers through his glasses with evident curiosity.

“Found a place yet?” Bert asked.

“Haven’t looked. Haven’t had time. Mrs. Wagner—she’s the woman we rent this of—wants us to go with her. She’s taken some sort of a house across the railroad. But that would be too far to walk. Besides, she doesn’t half[218] look after things. She’s away all day working in the laundry. Say, you’d throw a fit if you looked under the beds and saw the dust there. She makes me tired. Whenever we kick she says she hasn’t time, and begins a long song-and-dance about being a poor widow. Hang it, I like things clean, I do!”

“So do I,” said Harry cordially. “And look here, if you want a good room where things will be kept spick and span all the time, I can tell you where to look for it.”

“Where’s that?”

“Mrs. Freer’s; know where that is?”

“Yes, that’s where Phin Dorr lives. Evan here says she’s his mother. Is she?”

“Yes; she was married again after Phin’s father died. Well, she’s got a room on the first floor that’s a peach. Clean? Thunder! You can’t find a speck of dust anywhere. It would be just the place for you fellows if you’ve got to get out of here. And besides that, you’d be doing a real kindness to Phin. You know they haven’t any money except what they both make, and I guess it would mean a lot to them to rent this room of theirs.”

[219]

“Well, we haven’t looked around any yet,” said Sanger cautiously, with a glance toward his roommate. “We’ll have a look at the room, though, to-morrow, and see how we like it. What’s the rent, do you know?”

“Three dollars a week,” said Hansel.

Sanger shook his head gravely.

“Too much. Everyone’s putting their prices down now, you know. It’s pretty hard to rent after school begins. I can get all kinds of rooms for two and a half. Why, we only pay about two and a quarter for this!”

“Cheap enough,” said Bert. “But then it’s a dickens of a long way up here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you get used to it,” answered Sanger. “Besides, it’s handy for your meals. If we went to Mrs. Freer’s I suppose we’d have to walk about three blocks to get anything to eat.”

“I think she’d take you to board if you wanted her to,” said Hansel.

“How much?”

“I don’t know, but I guess she’d do it as cheap as anyone, and she’s a mighty good cook too. I know that because I’ve eaten there.”

[220]

“Maybe she’d rent for less now that it’s so late?” suggested Sanger.

“I don’t believe so,” replied Harry carelessly. “You see, there aren’t many rooms vacant around town now. And, anyhow, this room of hers is worth three.”

“Maybe, but we couldn’t pay that much, could we, Evan?”

“We wouldn’t care to,” said Shill cautiously.

“Maybe if you saw the room you would, though,” Hansel volunteered. “You wouldn’t want to drop around there this evening, I suppose, and look at it? We could go along with you and introduce you.”

“Say, how much are you fellows getting for renting it?” asked Sanger with a grin. Bert colored and looked insulted, but Harry interposed with a chuckle.

“I don’t blame you for asking that,” he answered. “It does look as though we were working on a commission, doesn’t it? The fact is, Johnny, we’re all fond of Phin, and you know he’s had a hard time this fall. So we thought that if we could help him to rent that room we’d do it. Dana heard that you fellows would have[221] to move out in a few days, and it occurred to him that maybe he could help you and Phin at the same time. When he asked me I told him right away that I knew you’d be glad to stretch a point to help Phin.”

“Hm!” grunted Sanger dubiously. “That’s all well enough, Harry, but if Mrs. What’s-her-name wants to rent that room of hers she ought to put the rent down to two and a half at most. If we don’t take it, it isn’t likely that she’ll rent it all the year.”

“Oh, you can’t tell,” answered Harry. “People come and go here. She’s not worrying about that. Supposing, though, we all walk down there together, and we’ll ask what her best price is.”

“Oh, I guess we don’t care to go to-night,” said Sanger. “It’s late and I’ve got my slippers on. Evan and I’ll look at the place in the morning on the way up to school. Of course I’d be glad to do anything I could to help Phin, but three dollars is a whole lot to pay for a room at this time of the year, and I don’t believe I could afford it.”

“Well, we thought we’d mention it to you,”[222] said Harry, arising. “No harm done, eh? We wanted you to have a chance at it, but if you think it’s too high, all right. You might ask Mrs. Freer if she’ll take less, you know; maybe she will. But I know very well that I wouldn’t if I were she. She’s got one of the best rooms in town, and ought to get a fair price. Hope you fellows will find what you want; but there aren’t many rooms for rent now, they say, so you needn’t be disappointed if you don’t find anything right away. I guess we’ll be going on.”

Once more on the street Hansel turned to Harry.

“What do you think?” he asked eagerly.

“Oh, he’d take the room in a minute if she’d offer it to him for two and a half. He will go around there in the morning and try to beat her down. And I’m afraid he will do it, too.”

“Well, maybe she’d be glad to get it off her hands for two and a half,” said Bert.

“Maybe she would,” Harry answered. “But Sanger can pay three and I’m going to see that he does it.”

“How?” asked Hansel.

“I’m going to stop there now, see Phin and[223] tell him to make his mother promise not to come down on her price.”

“What are you going to tell Phin?”

“No more than I have to. I’ll tell him that Sanger and Shill are looking for a room, that they can pay three, and will do it if they have to. Then to-morrow you and I, Hansel, will hike around and get a refusal on every decent room there is left.”

“That’s great!” said Bert. “I’d go around with you and help, only I’m afraid I’d get sort of mixed up and hire the rooms by mistake. Landladies can do anything they want with me. The first year I was here I couldn’t get on the campus, and I went to look at a room at Mrs. Stevens’s place. It was a beast of a room, but she took me up three flights of stairs and went to a lot of trouble to show it and so—well, first thing I knew I had taken it for the year!”

“You’d better keep out of it, I guess,” laughed Hansel. “And supposing Bert and I go on to the corner and wait for you, Harry? If we all go in Phin may suspect something. You know he’d forbid us to do what we’re doing if he found out about it.”

[224]

“Don’t see why,” Bert objected.

“He would, though,” said Hansel stoutly. “We’ll wait for you at the corner. Don’t stay long; it’s getting frosty.”

Harry was back in ten minutes or so, reporting that Phin had agreed to keep the price up, and the three conspirators walked briskly back to school.

The next morning Hansel and Harry were extremely busy, so busy that each was obliged to absent himself from one recitation, a thing much easier to do than to explain subsequently. By dinner time they had canvassed the town of Bevan Hills very thoroughly, and had between them discovered just five rooms which might possibly answer the requirements of Messrs. Sanger and Shill. And in each case they had secured the refusal of the apartment. The landladies had given up hope of renting the empty rooms that year, and when Hansel or Harry professed to be unable to reach a decision, and asked that they be given an option for a few days, their request was readily granted, especially as they in no case expressed dissatisfaction with the price quoted.

[225]

“I guess now,” said Harry, “it’s up to Sanger to either go across the railroad with his Dutch lady or take Phin’s room.”

Had Sanger been suspiciously inclined the solicitude displayed by Harry and Hansel and Bert during the next few days might have suggested more to him than it did.

“Found a room yet?” they asked him regularly every morning and afternoon, and Sanger would shake his head and acknowledge that he hadn’t. At first he was rather superior about it, seeking to convey the idea that he had a good many apartments in view, and was only undecided which was more worthy of the honor of sheltering him, but on the third day there was a worried, perplexed tone in his voice.

“No,” he said, “I haven’t found a room yet, and I don’t believe I’m going to. The landladies are crazy, I guess; asking me three and even three and a half at this time of year! And there are only three or four decent rooms in town, anyway.”

“Well, you only want one,” said Bert cheerfully.

“Yes, but I can’t get the promise of even[226] one! Everywhere I go they tell me that some one has the refusal of the room just now, but if I’ll leave my name they’ll let me know in a few days. Why, we’ve got to get out of our present quarters by Friday!”

“Too bad you couldn’t have taken that room at Mrs. Freer’s,” said Hansel. “That would have been a pretty good place for you fellows.”

“Well, we may take it yet,” answered Sanger, “if the old lady’ll come down a bit on her price.”

“Oh, then it isn’t rented?” asked Hansel in simulated surprise.

“It wasn’t yesterday,” answered Sanger. “Did you hear that it was taken?”

“N-no, only I know that there was some one looking at that room two nights ago, and I heard that they liked it first rate. But maybe they haven’t actually taken it yet. Too bad, though, for that was certainly a dandy room. Well, I hope you find something, Sanger.”

“Maybe you’ll decide to go with your present landlady,” suggested Bert. “It isn’t bad across the railroad, they say. I never knew any fellow that lived there, but I’ve heard that if you didn’t[227] mind kids it wasn’t so bad. Of course, it’ll be a pretty fierce walk in winter!”

“Oh, I’m not going there,” muttered Sanger. “That’s out of the question. I’ll find a place to-day or to-morrow, all right. If you see Phin Dorr, Dana, I wish you’d find out about that room for me. And if it isn’t rented you might tell him that I’m thinking about it, and will pay two dollars and seventy-five cents. It’s worth that, don’t you think, Bert?”

“Sure! It’s worth what they ask, I think.”

“Not at this time of year,” said Sanger doggedly.

“I don’t see that the time of year has got much to do with it,” said Hansel a trifle impatiently. “You say yourself that there are only three or four rooms vacant that you’d have and that you can’t get even those. Seems to me the supply and demand are only about equal. Considering the scarcity of good rooms I don’t see why the landladies don’t put their prices up instead of reducing them!”

“But who do you suppose are after rooms now?” asked Sanger. “Awfully funny, I call it. I’ll bet the women just tell me that to make[228] me pay their prices. I don’t believe they’ve given refusals to folks!”

“But even if they haven’t,” said Hansel, “their prices are too high, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” growled Sanger. “They’re all trying to hold me up, because they know I’ve got to have a room right away. I’ve got a good mind to fool them and——”

“Live across the railroad?” asked Bert.

“No,” answered the other defiantly, “take that room at Phin’s place!”

“Well, I wouldn’t decide right away,” said Hansel soothingly. ............