Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1906-08-25
A MYSTERIOUS MAN.

Gyp, maybe because Of her opportuni-
ties, was the only one to suspect tragedy
breathing behind the curtain. None of
the ever changing occupants of Archer's
tenement had time to pose as students of
the psychological. There was a ripple of
dull excitement as the dark, set-hpped
young man from nowhere, carrying
small trunk and puzzling air OF refine
ment, was seen going consciously up the
common staircase, but it 1izzed out the
first time he was heard to drop his voice,
when the landlords agent called. Down
on his luck, asking Tor a few days grace,
a sympathetic chord was struck at once.
After that only one person troubled
about him and his fugitive ways, and
that was Gyp, the delicate. deformed girl
in the lowest room, who was paid to keep
the stairs and landings respectable, and
who was at the beck and call of any one
in the tenement wanting an odd job done
cheaply.
He had the sky parlor, so high up that
the cousumptive nondescript who rented
it before him had been known to pause
for breath on the staircase twenty times.
Gyp, with the keen intelligence of her
kind, was bound to note what a farcical
amount Of furniture had been carried up,
and that seldom the scent of cooking
found its way through the door chinks
She knew his name must be Frank Mere
dith, because lctters-a rarity in the
tenement-came frequently for him.
They were mostly in long envelopes, and
once or twice when she carried them up
she had been struck by the twitch of his
lips as he took them and hastily closed
his door again. Strangest of all, he was
a man who could live without work and
without friends. Regularly at dusk he
went out for one hour, for the rest of
the day he followed the lead of the con
sumptiye man and sat alone in the quiet
room. Doing what? heaven alone had
an mixing. Twice a week she washed
the staircase down and she often paused
over that top landing and wrung her
flannel half a dozen times unnecessarily.
in hopes of hearing something. Once he
had opened his door softly and caught
her at it.
oh, | beg your PARDON he whispered.
(tancy thct language!l II wondered
what the scrubbng noise was"
One night she saw him step sharply
out as usual. As it happened she was
Just about to run on one of her own fur
tive errands. Gyp had no notion of
weighing impulses; she followed; she fol-
lowed him at a little distance He put
two or three long envelopes very care
fully into the pillar box, and then van.
ished through a doorway. 1t was the
local free library and no place for Gyp.
There were two hushed rooms, one for
newspapers and the other for magazines
and volumes. She ventured uncertainty
into the latter, as he had hurried straight
to a newspaper stand. 0stensibiy en-
crossed by medical directory she
watched through glass partition He
had turned to a certain corner of the
paper and was staring as if fascinated.
Just as he made to tear himself away
the lights blazed up disconcertingly. Both
noticed something-she that he was two
shades whittier than usual, and he that
she had been watching him. He hicked
back the sheets and walked out, with a
pink spot on either cheek Again the
impulse was open to criticism. but min
ute or so later she found herself scan
ming that printed corner. There it was
something that helped to solve the mys-
terry and at the same time thickened it.
IF Frank Meredith will only commu.
mcate with known address he will learn
that bygones are bygones in the fullest
sense Ethel heartbrokcn"
That next morning as she sat her pail
steaIthily down ON the top landing his
door clicked; he looked out. 1t made her
jump She had been picturing the face
.oi Ethel in her soapsuds and her lip