The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-22
(COntinued.l

(Continued.)
 The strange character Of the mar was best shown by the pictures thai adorned or rather disfgured the walls Vulgar photographs and prints were to be seen on all sides. Mingled with these cheap creations were excellent copies of famous Madonnas, quaint scriptural drawings, engravings of the Saviour and an allegorical colored print which emphasized the joys of heaven. There was also badly drawn but idealized portrait of broom, done in crayon at the age of twenty. This portrait was one of his prized posses sions. He loved it best because it was a bust and did not expose his Iongitu. dinal defects. If broom ever had en- tertained feminine visitor in his apartments, there is no record of the fact. But few men had seen the inte- rior of his home, and they had gone away with distressed. perplexed sensi. bilities.
 He cooked his own meals on the oil stove and, alone, ate them from the lit. tie table that stood near the heater
 
 eating house for a lonely feast. His rooms usually reeked with the odor of boiled coffee. burned cabbage and grease, pungent chemicals and long suffering bed linen. Of his front" room it may be said that 1t was kitch- en, dining room, parlor, library, work shop, laboratory and conservatory. Four fowerpots, in which as many geraniums existed with difficulty de. spite Droom's constant and unwaver. ing care, occupied conspicuous place on the window sills overlooking the street. He watched over them with all the tender solicitude of lover, sur. prising as it may appear when one pauses to consider the vicious exterior of the man.
 broom was frugal. He was, in truth, . miser. If any one had asked him what he expected to do with the money he was putting away in the bank, he' could not have answered, calculating as he was by nature. He had no rela- tive to whom he would leave it, and he had no inclination to give up the habit of active employment. His salary was small, but he managed to save more than half of it-for rainy day." as he said. He did his reading and ex- perimenting by kerosene light and went to bed by candlelight, saving a few pennies a week in that way The windows in his apartment were wash ed not oftener than once a year. He was seldom obliged to look through them during the day. and their only duty at night was to provide ventila- tion, and even that was characteristic ally meager.
 He was a man of habit, not habits. A pipe at night was his only form of dissipation. It was not too far for him to walk home from the office of evenings, and he invariably did so un. less the weather was extremely un- pleasant. So methodical was he that he never had walked over any other bridge than the one in Wells street, | coming and going.
 Past sixty-ave years of age, Droon's hair stills was black and snaky, his teeth were as yellow and jagged as they were in the seventies, and his eyes were as blue and ugly as ever. He had not aged with James Ban seuner. In truth, he looked but little older than when we made his ac. quaintance. The outside world knew no more of Droom's private transac- tions than 1t knew of Bansemer's. Up in the horrid little apartment in Wells street the queer old man could do as he willed, unohserved and unannoyed He could pursue his experiments with strange chemicals, he could construct odd devices with his kit of tools, and