by crazy structures that nearly all had sprung to rambling life from one-roomed refugee shacks which had dotted the city after the fire and earthquake.  Most of them were vine clad and brightened with beds of scarlet geraniums, but the house before which Storch halted rose uncompromisingly from the sun-baked ground without the charity of a covering.  Storch turned the key and threw the door open, motioning Fred to enter.  Fred did as he was bidden and found himself in a cluttered room, showing harshly in the light streaming in from a near-by street lamp.  The air was foul with stale tobacco, refuse, and imprisoned odors of innumerable greasy meals and the sweaty apparel of men who work with their hands.

Storch lighted a lamp.  A tumble-down couch stood against the wall, and in an opposite corner a heap of tattered quilts had been flung disdainfully.  Tables and chairs and even the floor were piled with papers and cheaply covered books and tattered magazines.

Storch pointed to the couch.  “You sleep there to-night.  I’ll roll up on the floor.”

It never occurred to Fred to protest.  The two began to shed their outer garments.  Fred crawled in between the musty quilts.  Storch blew out the lamp, and Fred saw him move toward the quilts in the corner.  Without bothering to straighten them out he flung himself down and pulled a covering over him.  The light from the street lamp continued to flood the room.  Presently Fred heard Storch chuckling.

“So you know Hilmer!” he was repeating again, making a sound of satisfaction, as one does over a succulent morsel.  “Well ... well ... fancy how things turn out!”

Fred made no reply, and after a time a gentle snoring told that Storch had fallen asleep.

Fred tossed about, oppressed by the close air.  But, in the end, even he fell into a series of fitful dozes.  He dreamed the room in which he was sleeping was suddenly transformed into a huge spider web from which there was no escape.  And he caught glimpses of Storch himself hanging spider-wise from a gossamer thread, spinning dizzily in midair...  He awoke repeatedly, returning as often to the same dream.  Toward morning he heard a faint stirring about.  But he lay huddled in a pretense of sleep...  Finally the door banged and he knew that Storch had left...  He let out a profound sigh and turned his face from the light...

CHAPTER XVII

When Fred Starratt awoke a noonday sun was flooding in at the single window.  Consciousness brought no confusion ... he was beginning to grow accustomed to sudden shifts in fortune and strange environments had long since ceased to be a waking novelty.  Outside he could hear the genial noises of a thickly populated lane—­shrilly cried bits of neighborhood gossip bandied from doorstep to doorstep ... the laughter of children ... the call of a junkman ... even a smothered cackling from some captive hen fulfilling its joyful