“You know what I mean,” she said.

I did.

* * * * *

When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.

“You know,” he began his discourse, “my wife she uset to live in N’ York!”

I didn’t know, but I said “Yes.”

“She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross-like.  Thirty-four’s on one side o’ the street an’ thirty-five on t’other.  How’s that?”

“That is the invariable rule, I believe.”

“Then—­I say—­these here new folk that you ‘n’ your wife seem so mighty taken up with—­d’ye know anything about ’em?”

“I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus,” I replied, conscious of some irritability.  “If I choose to associate with any of them——­”

“Jess so—­jess so!” broke in Jacobus.  “I hain’t nothin’ to say ag’inst yer sosherbil’ty.  But do ye know them?”

“Why, certainly not,” I replied.

“Well—­that was all I wuz askin’ ye.  Ye see, when he come here to take the rooms—­you wasn’t here then—­he told my wife that he lived at number thirty-four in his street.  An’ yistiddy she told her that they lived at number thirty-five.  He said he lived in an apartment-house.  Now there can’t be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin they?”

“What street was it?” I inquired, wearily.

“Hundred ‘n’ twenty-first street.”

“May be,” I replied, still more wearily.  “That’s Harlem.  Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.”

I went up to my wife’s room.

“Don’t you think it’s queer?” she asked me.

“I think I’ll have a talk with that young man to-night,” I said, “and see if he can give some account of himself.”

“But, my dear,” my wife said, gravely, “she doesn’t know whether they’ve had the measles or not.”

“Why, Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “they must have had them when they were children.”

“Please don’t be stupid,” said my wife.  “I meant their children.”

After dinner that night—­or rather, after supper, for we had dinner in the middle of the day at Jacobus’s—­I walked down the long verandah to ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on a twilight stroll.  Half way down I met Major Halkit.

“That friend of yours,” he said, indicating the unconscious figure at the further end of the house, “seems to be a queer sort of a Dick.  He told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a chance to invest his capital.  And I’ve been telling him what an everlasting big show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust Company—­starts next month—­four million capital—­I told you all about it.  ‘Oh, well,’ he says, ‘let’s wait and think about it.’  ‘Wait!’ says I, ’the Capitoline Trust Company won’t wait for you, my boy.  This is letting you in on the ground floor,’ says I, ‘and it’s now or never.’  ‘Oh, let it wait,’ says he.  I don’t know what’s in-to the man.”