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“How often do you wash your hair?” he demanded.

“Well, back home,” confessed Mary Louise, “every six weeks or so was enough, but—-“

“Not here,” put in the rude young man, briskly. “Never. That’s all very well for the country, but it won’t do in the city. Once a week, at least, and on the roof. Cleanliness demands it.”

“But if I’m going back to the country,” replied Mary Louise, “it won’t be necessary.”

“But you’re not,” calmly said the collarless young man, just as Mary Louise vanished from sight.

Down at the other end of the hallway on Mary Louise’s floor Charlie, the janitor, was doing something to the windows now, with a rag, and a pail of water.

“Get it dry?” he called out, sociably.

“Yes, thank you,” answered Mary Louise, and turned to enter her own little apartment. Then, hesitatingly, she came back to Charlie’s window.

“There–there was a man up there–a very tall, very thin, very rude, very–that is, rather nice youngish oldish man, in slippers, and no collar. I wonder—-“

“Oh, him!” snorted Charlie. “He don’t show himself onct in a blue moon. None of the other tenants knows he’s up there. Has the whole top floor to himself, and shuts himself up there for weeks at a time, writin’ books, or some such truck. That guy, he owns the building.”

“Owns the building!” said Mary Louise, faintly. “Why he looked–he looked—-“

“Sure,” grinned Charlie. “That’s him. Name’s Reeves–Cecil Reeves. Say, ain’t that a divil of a name?”