It is not my purpose to dwell upon those disgraceful landlords who profiteer. I am concerned rather with the character of the Perfect Landlord, a just man, respected, if not loved (within reason), by fourteen married women and a Charlie Wah Loo. But this admirable ideal seems impracticable. I know a landlord who speaks with pleasure of the social aspect of collecting his rents; but his is a selected tenantry, for he lets apartments only to what he calls "nice people," whose society he feels reasonably certain he will enjoy on rent-day, and whose financial status, he also feels reasonably certain, is and will remain such that no painful embarrassment on this sordid but necessary side of their relations will ever cast a gloom over his visit. Yet even so, I gather that there are sometimes breaks in the golden chain, when the nice tenant chats with a too feverish interest about life and things in general, and the sordid aspect cannot be glossed over by a casual "Ah, yes, the rent." Such breaks in the golden chain are the test of landlordry.
I am reminded of a little one-act play which I have just written entitled
SCENE: _A tenement, owned by_ I, _but referred to as_ MRS. BUTTON'S, _which is perhaps more correct._ MRS. BUTTON _is washing dishes. The room steams. Slow creaks outside as of a reluctant man coming upstairs._ MRS. BUTTON _smiles enigmatically. A knocking at the door, as in "Macbeth."_
I _(laughing with affected lightness)._ Ah, _good-_morning, Mrs. Button. I've come for the rent.
MRS. BUTTON _(weeping)._ It's not me, as ye know, sir, that likes to be behind with th' rint. I'm proud.
I _(touched in spite of himself by the sight of a strong woman in tears)._ I know _that._ But you've been here seven months, Mrs. Button, without--
MRS. BUTTON _(wiping her eyes)._ Yis, I'm an old tenant, and 't would break me heart to go. An' me goin' to begin payin' reg'lar only nixt week, sir. It's th' only home I've got, an' it's cruel harrd to leave it.
I (_sternly_). Very well. Very well. I shall _expect_ the money next week. Good-day, Mrs. Button.
I _exits_. MRS. BUTTON _resumes washing dishes, smiling enigmatically. The room steams, and steps are heard going hastily downstairs, fainter and fainter_.