“PRICE of flat?”
“Twenty-five a month.”
“Take twenty?”
“No.”
“Twenty-two?”
“No.”
“Quiet house? No children? No musical instruments? No mice? My folks is partic’lar, awful partic’lar–awful clean! … They’s out huntin’ too-maybe they’s found somethin’ at twenty. Consider twenty-three?”
“No. Twenty-five is my price, take it or leave it.”
He went back to pinch the mattress again, threw himself into an easy chair and moulded his back into the cushions. …”Comfortable chair! Well, guess I better go and see what’s doin’ with the folks. Twenty-three-fifty? Great to get partic’lar tenants, you know.”
I waved him to the door.
Soon he was back with his wife, dry and brittle as melba toast, and a daughter, dull and sagging. Both women flopped into easy chairs and lay back, putting their feet up on another chair; they began to press their shoulder-blades into the upholstery, hunting lumps or loose springs.
Meanwhile their noses wriggled like rabbits, inflated nostrils spread to catch possible smells, eyes rolling from object to object critically. After resting, they went from one thing to another, tapping, punching; blankets got smelled, rugs turned over, cupboards inspected, bureau drawers and mirrors tested.
“Any one ever die in this apartment?”
“No.”
“Any one ever sick here?” The woman spat her questions.
“Any caterwauling at nights?”
“We do not keep cats.”
“Then you have mice–bound to.”
“Please go. I don’t want you for tenants!”
“Hoity, toity! Give my folks time to look around. They’s partic’lar. I telled you so.”
The woman and the girl were in the kitchen insulting my pots and pans. The woman stuck a long thin nose into the garbage pail. The girl opened the cupboards.
“Ants? Cockroaches?”
I flung the outer door wide. “Go! I won’t have you as tenants!”
Melba toast scrunched. Pa roared. “You can’t do that! You can’t do that! The card says ‘Vacant.’ We’ve took it.”
His hand went reluctantly into his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, laid two tens upon the table; impertinently leering an enquiring “O.K.?”, he held out his hand for the key. I stuck it back into my pocket-did not deign an answer. Slowly he fumbled with the bill-roll, laid five ones on the table beside the two tens. Between each laying down he paused and looked at me. When my full price was on the table I put my hand in my pocket, handed him the key.
At six o’clock the next morning the “partic’lar woman” jangled my doorbell as if the house was on fire.
“There’s a rust spot on the bottom of the kettle—Old Dutch.”
I gave her a can of Old Dutch. She was scarcely gone before she was back.
“Scoured a hole clean through. Give me another kettle.” Hardly was she inside her door before the old man came running. “She says which is hot and which cold?”
“Tell her to find out!”
No other tenant in that or any other flat in my house left the place in such filth and disorder as those partic’lar people.
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