When he reached the head of School Street he pulled the slip of paper again from his pocket and made sure of the address. "A. T. Merriman, 109 Mill Street," was what was written there. He asked his way at the next corner and was directed across the railroad. "Mill Street runs at right angles to the track," said the citizen who was directing him. "You'll see a granite building after you pass the crossing. That's Whitwell's Mill. The street you want runs along the farther side of it." Myron thanked him and went on down School Street. The obliging citizen gazed after him in mingled surprise and admiration.
"Well, he's certainly a dressy boy," he murmured. "Must be Old John W. Croesus's son!"
Mill Street wasn't far and 109 was soon found, but the character of the district wasn't at all to Myron's liking. Ragged and dirty children overflowed the sidewalks and played in the cobbled roadway, slatternly women gossiped from open windows, dejected-looking men lounged at the corners, stray cats rummaged the gutters. The houses, frame structures whose dingy clapboards were flush with the street, had apparently seen far better days. Now dust and grime lay thick on them and many a window was wanting a pane of glass. The prospect of penetrating to such a place every day was revolting, and, having found the numerals "109" above a sagging porch, Myron was strongly inclined to turn back. But he didn't, and a tinkle that followed his pull at the rusty knob beside the door brought a stout and frowsy woman who wiped her hands on her apron as she pulled the portal open.
"I don't know is he in, sir. One flight up and you'll see his name on the door. If you come again, sir, just you step right in. The door ain't never locked in the daytime."
Myron mounted a creaky stairway guiltless of carpet and found himself in a narrow hall from which four doors opened. In spite of dinginess and want of repairs, the interior of 109 was, he had to acknowledge, astonishingly clean. One of the doors did present a card to the inquiring gaze, but in the gloom its inscription was not decipherable and so Myron chanced it and knocked. A voice answered from beyond the portal and nearly simultaneously a dog barked sharply. Myron entered.