"What do you want?" demanded the tall and angular woman who answered their summons at the door.
"Good-morning, madam," said Dave, politely. "I am looking for a young gentleman named Nicholas Jasniff. I believe he boards here."
"Oh, so that's it," said the woman. She eyed Dave and Roger in a suspicious manner. "Who told you he was boarding here?"
"He isn't here--he went away last week--owing me one pound six," was the spiteful answer. "I wish I had my hands on him. It's Kate Clever would teach him a lesson, the scamp!"
"So he ran away owing you some board money?" said Roger.
"I have and I haven't. Are you friends of his?"
"Not exactly, but we wish very much to find him."
"I am not the one to do him a favor--after him treating me so shabbily," said the woman, spitefully.
"You'll not be doing him a favor," returned Dave. "To tell you the truth, I want to catch him for some other wrong he's been doing."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" The woman became more interested. "You are from the States, aren't you?"
"He was from the States. He pretended that he wasn't, but I knew differently. He got letters from America--I saw one of them."
"And where did he go, if you please?" asked Dave.
The tall woman drew up her angular shoulders and pursed up her thin lips.
"If you'll pay that board money I'll help you to find him."
"Very well, if we find him I'll pay you the one pound and six shillings," answered Dave. He did not wish to waste time that might be valuable.
"Come in the parlor and I'll tell you what I know," said Kate Clever.
They entered the little musty and dusty parlor, with its old haircloth furniture and its cheap bric-a-brac. The woman dusted two of the chairs with her apron and told them to be seated.
"I am a poor widow," she explained. "I have to make my living by taking boarders. This Jasniff paid me only one week's board. He said he expected to get some money, but while I was waiting he took his bag and box and slipped away one day when I was to market."
"I thought he had plenty of money," said Roger. "He ran away with enough."
"O dear! Then I am glad he is out of my house. Really! we might all have been murdered in our beds!" And the woman held up her thin hands in horror.
After that she told what she could of Nick Jasniff. She said he had spent a good part of his time, both day and night, down in the heart of London, visiting the theaters and other places of amusement. Once he had complained of being robbed of his pocketbook on a tram-car, and again he had lost himself in Cheapside and fallen in with some thugs who had tried to carry him into an alleyway. In the fight that followed he had had an eye blackened and the sleeve torn from his coat. She had sewed on the sleeve again, but he had paid her nothing for the work.