First Mrs. Parker would show you th

First Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of the professions that fitted Mrs. Parker's parlours.

Next you ascended one flight of stairs and looked at the second- floor-back at $8. Convinced by her second-floor manner that it was worth the $12 that Mr. Toosenberry always paid for it until he left to take charge of his brother's orange plantation in Florida near Palm Beach, where Mrs. McIntyre always spent the winters that had the double front room with private bath, you managed to babble that you wanted something still cheaper.

If you survived Mrs. Parker's scorn, you were taken to look at Mr. Skidder's large hall room on the third floor. Mr. Skidder's room was not vacant. He wrote plays and smoked cigarettes in it all day long. But every room-hunter was made to visit his room to admire the lambrequins. After each visit, Mr. Skidder, from the fright caused by possible eviction, would pay something on his rent.

Then--oh, then--if you still stood on one foot, with your hot hand clutching the three moist dollars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your hideous and culpable poverty, nevermore would Mrs. Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly the word" Clara," she would show you her back, and march downstairs. Then Clara, the coloured maid, would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight Room. It occupied 7x8 feet of floor space at the middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom.

In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coffin. Your hand crept to your throat, you gasped, you looked up as from a well--and breathed once more. Through the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity.

"Two dollars, suh," Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half- Tuskegeenial tones.

One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: "Goodness me ! Why didn't you keep up with us?"

Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlours. "In this closet," she said, "one could keep a skeleton or anaesthetic or coal "

"But I am neither a doctor nor a dentist," said Miss Leeson, with a shiver.

Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to the second floor back.

"Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! I'm not Hetty if I do look green. I'm just a poor little working girl. Show me something higher and lower."

Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap on his door.

"Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, with her demon's smile at his pale looks. "I didn't know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look at your lambrequins."

"They're too lovely for anything," said Miss Leeson, smiling in exactly the way the angels do.

After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and inserting a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features.

"Anna Held'll jump at it," said Mr. Skidder to himself, putting his feet up against the lambrequins and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish.

Presently the tocsin call of "Clara!" sounded to the world the state of Miss Leeson's purse. A dark goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian stairway, thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words "Two dollars!"

"I'll take it!" sighed Miss Leeson, sinking down upon the squeaky iron bed.

Every day Miss Leeson went out to work. At night she brought home papers with handwriting on them and made copies with her typewriter. Sometimes she had no work at night, and then she would sit on the steps of the high stoop with the other roomers. Miss Leeson was not intended for a sky-light room when the plans were drawn for her creation. She was gay-hearted and full of tender, whimsical fancies. Once she let Mr. Skidder read to her three acts of his great (unpublished) comedy, "It's No Kid; or, The Heir of the Subway."

There was rejoicing among the gentlemen roomers whenever Miss Leeson had time to sit on the steps for an hour or two. But Miss Longnecker, the tall blonde who taught in a public school and said, "Well, really!" to everything you said, sat on the top step and sniffed. And Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney every Sunday and worked in a department store, sat on the bottom step and sniffed. Miss Leeson sat on the middle step and the men would quickly group around her.

Especially Mr. Skidder, who had cast her in his mind for the star part in a private, romantic (unspoken) drama in real life. And especially Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish. And especially very young Mr. Evans, who set up a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave off cigarettes. The men voted her "the funniest and jolliest ever," but the sniffs on the top step and the lower step were implacable.

* * * * * *

I pray you let the drama halt while Chorus stalks to the footlights and drops an epicedian tear upon the fatness of Mr. Hoover. Tune the pipes to the tragedy of tallow, the bane of bulk, the calamity of corpulence. Tried out, Falstaff might have rendered more romance to the ton than would have Romeo's rickety ribs to the ounce. A lover may sigh, but he must not puff. To the train of Momus are the fat men remanded. In vain beats the faithfullest heart above a 52-inch belt. Avaunt, Hoover! Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish and fat is meat for perdition. There was never a chance for you, Hoover.

As Mrs. Parker's roomers sat thus one summer's evening, Miss Leeson looked up into the firmament and cried with her little gay laugh:

"Why, there's Billy Jackson! I can see him from down here, too."

All looked up--some at the windows of skyscrapers, some casting about for an airship, Jackson-guided.

"It's that star," explained Miss Leeson, pointing with a tiny finger. "Not the big one that twinkles--the steady blue one near it. I can see it every night through my skylight. I named it Billy Jackson."

"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "I didn't know you were an astronomer, Miss Leeson."

"Oh, yes," said the small star gazer, "I know as much as any of them about the style of sleeves they're going to wear next fall in Mars."

"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "The star you refer to is Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia. It is nearly of the second magnitude, and its meridian passage is--"

"Oh," said the very young Mr. Evans, "I think Billy Jackson is a much better name for it."

"Same here," said Mr. Hoover, loudly breathing defiance to Miss Longnecker. "I think Miss Leeson has just as much right to name stars as any of those old astrologers had."

"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker.

"I wonder whether it's a shooting star," remarked Miss Dorn. "I hit nine ducks and a rabbit out of ten in the gallery at Coney Sunday."

"He doesn't show up very well from down here," said Miss Leeson. "You ought to see him from my room. You know you can see stars even in the daytime from the bottom of a well. At night my room is like the shaft of a coal mine, and it makes Billy Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night fastens her kimono with."

There came a time after that when Miss Leeson brought no formidable papers home to copy. And when she went out in the morning, instead of working, she went from office to office and let her heart melt away in the drip of cold refusals transmitted through insolent office boys. This went on.

There came an evening when she wearily climbed Mrs. Parker's stoop at the hour when she always returned from her dinner at the restaurant. But she had had no dinner.

As she stepped into the hall Mr. Hoover met her and seized his chance. He asked her to marry him, and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. She dodged, and caught the balustrade. He tried for her hand, and she raised it and smote him weakly in the face. Step by step she went up, dragging herself by the railing. She passed Mr. Skidder's door as he was red-inking a stage direction for Myrtle Delorme (Miss Leeson) in his (unaccepted) comedy, to "pirouette across stage from L to the side of the Count." Up the carpeted ladder she crawled at last and opened the door of the skylight room.

She was too weak to light the lamp or to undress. She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs. And in that Erebus of the skylight room, she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and smiled.

For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not let it be Gamma.

As she lay on her back she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.

"Good-bye, Billy," she murmured faintly. "Yo

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Pertama ibu Parker akan menunjukkan kepada Anda kamar-kamar double. Anda tidak akan berani untuk mengganggu nya Deskripsi keuntungan mereka dan manfaat pria yang telah menduduki mereka selama delapan tahun. Kemudian Anda akan mengatur untuk gagap keluar pengakuan bahwa Anda adalah seorang dokter maupun dokter gigi. Ibu Parker cara menerima pengakuan itu Anda bisa pernah sesudahnya menghibur perasaan yang sama terhadap orang tua Anda, yang telah diabaikan untuk melatih Anda di salah satu profesi yang dilengkapi kamar-kamar ibu Parker.Selanjutnya Anda naik satu penerbangan dari tangga dan melihat kedua-lantai-kembali $ 8. Yakin dengan sikapnya lantai dua yang itu worth $12 yang Mr Toosenberry selalu dibayar untuk itu sampai ia meninggalkan untuk mengambil alih perkebunan jeruk saudaranya di Florida di dekat Palm Beach, di mana ibu McIntyre selalu menghabiskan musim dingin yang memiliki kamar tamu double dengan bathtub pribadi, Anda berhasil babble bahwa Anda menginginkan sesuatu yang masih lebih murah.Jika Anda bertahan ibu Parker cemoohan, Anda dibawa untuk melihat Mr Skidder aula besar kamar di lantai. Tn. Skidder kamar itu tidak kosong. Ia menulis drama dan asap rokok di dalamnya sepanjang hari. Tetapi setiap kamar-hunter dibuat untuk mengunjungi kamar untuk mengagumi lambrequins. Setelah setiap kunjungan, Mr Skidder, dari ketakutan yang disebabkan oleh mungkin penggusuran, akan membayar sesuatu sewa nya.Then--oh, then--if you still stood on one foot, with your hot hand clutching the three moist dollars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your hideous and culpable poverty, nevermore would Mrs. Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly the word" Clara," she would show you her back, and march downstairs. Then Clara, the coloured maid, would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight Room. It occupied 7x8 feet of floor space at the middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom.In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coffin. Your hand crept to your throat, you gasped, you looked up as from a well--and breathed once more. Through the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity."Two dollars, suh," Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half- Tuskegeenial tones.One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: "Goodness me ! Why didn't you keep up with us?"Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlours. "In this closet," she said, "one could keep a skeleton or anaesthetic or coal ""Tapi aku bukan seorang dokter atau dokter gigi," kata Miss Leeson, dengan gemetar.Ibu Parker memberinya menatap percaya, mendengar, mencibir, es yang dia terus untuk mereka yang gagal untuk memenuhi syarat sebagai dokter atau dokter gigi, dan memimpin jalan ke belakang lantai kedua."Delapan dolar?" kata Miss Leeson. "Dear saya! Saya tidak Hetty jika aku melihat hijau. Aku hanya seorang miskin bekerja gadis kecil. Menunjukkan saya sesuatu yang lebih tinggi dan lebih rendah."Tn. Skidder melompat dan strewed lantai dengan rokok di Indonesia di rap pada pintu."Excuse me, Mr Skidder," kata ibu Parker, disertai senyuman setan nya tampak pucat. "Aku tidak tahu Anda berada di. Saya meminta wanita untuk melihat di lambrequins Anda.""Mereka terlalu indah untuk apa-apa," kata Miss Leeson, tersenyum dalam cara yang dilakukan para malaikat.Setelah mereka telah Skidder Mr mendapat sangat sibuk menghapus tinggi, berambut hitam pahlawan dari yang terbaru (tidak diterbitkan) bermain dan memasukkan satu kecil, roguish dengan rambut berat, cerah dan bersemangat fitur."Anna Held akan melompat pada saat itu," kata Mr Skidder untuk dirinya, meletakkan kakinya terhadap lambrequins dan menghilang di awan asap yang seperti cumi-cumi udara.Saat ini tocsin panggilan "Clara!" terdengar ke dunia negara Miss Leeson dompet. Goblin gelap merebut dia, Mount Stygian tangga, memasukkan dia ke kubah dengan secercah cahaya di atas dan bergumam mengancam dan cabalistic kata-kata "Dua dolar!""Aku akan mengambilnya!" mendesah Miss Leeson, tenggelam ke bawah atas tempat tidur besi berderit.Setiap hari Miss Leeson keluar untuk bekerja. Pada malam ia membawa rumah kertas dengan tulisan tangan pada mereka dan membuat salinan dengan mesin tik nya. Kadang-kadang ia tidak bekerja di malam hari, dan kemudian ia akan duduk di langkah-langkah stoop tinggi dengan roomers lainnya. Miss Leeson ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk ruang langit-cahaya ketika rencana diambil untuk ciptaan-Nya. Dia adalah gay-hati dan penuh khayalan-khayalan yang lembut, aneh. Setelah dia membiarkan Mr Skidder membaca nya tiga tindakan komedi (tidak dipublikasikan) besar, "ini adalah anak-anak tidak; atau, pewaris Subway."Sana adalah sukacita antara pria roomers setiap kali Miss Leeson memiliki waktu untuk duduk pada langkah-langkah untuk satu atau dua jam. Tapi Miss Longnecker, pirang tinggi yang diajarkan di sekolah umum dan berkata, "Yah, benar-benar!" untuk segala sesuatu yang Anda katakan, duduk di atas langkah dan mengendus. Dan Miss Dorn, yang menembak bebek bergerak di Coney setiap hari Minggu dan bekerja di sebuah department store, duduk di bawah langkah dan mengendus. Miss Leeson duduk di tengah langkah dan orang-orang akan dengan cepat kelompok di sekelilingnya.Terutama Mr Skidder, yang telah melemparkan dia dalam pikirannya untuk bagian bintang pribadi, romantis (terucapkan) drama dalam kehidupan nyata. Dan terutama Tn. Hoover, yang empat puluh lima, lemak, siram dan bodoh. Dan terutama sangat muda Tn. Evans, yang mendirikan batuk berongga untuk membujuk dia untuk meminta dia untuk meninggalkan dari Rokok. Orang-orang memilih dia "lucu dan jolliest sebelumnya," tapi hirupan pada langkah atas dan bawah langkah berkeras.* * * * * *Aku berdoa Anda membiarkan drama menghentikan sementara Chorus batang untuk footlights dan tetes air mata epicedian berdasarkan kegemukan Tn. Hoover. Tune pipa untuk tragedi lemak, kutukan massal, bencana corpulence. Mencoba, Falstaff mungkin telah diberikan lebih asmara ton daripada akan mempunyai Romeo reyot iga ke ons. Seorang pencinta mungkin mendesah, tetapi ia tidak harus puff. Kereta Momus adalah lemak laki-laki yang menyerahkan kembali. Di sia-sia mengalahkan jantung faithfullest di atas sabuk 52 inci. Avaunt, Hoover! Hoover, empat puluh lima, siram dan bodoh, mungkin membawa Helen dirinya; Hoover, empat puluh lima, siram, bodoh dan lemak adalah daging untuk kebinasaan. Tidak pernah ada kesempatan bagi Anda, Hoover.Ketika Ibu Parker roomers duduk dengan demikian satu musim panas malam, Miss Leeson mendongak ke cakrawala dan menangis dengan dia tertawa sedikit gay:"Mengapa, ada Billy Jackson! Aku bisa melihatnya dari bawah sini, juga."Semua mendongak--beberapa di jendela pencakar langit, beberapa casting tentang untuk pesawat, Jackson-dipandu."Ini adalah bahwa bintang," menjelaskan Miss Leeson, menunjuk dengan jari kecil. "Tidak yang besar yang mengedipkan mata--yang biru stabil dekat itu. Aku bisa melihatnya setiap malam melalui skylight saya. Saya menamakannya Billy Jackson.""Yah, benar-benar!" kata Miss Longnecker. "Aku tidak tahu kau seorang astronom, Miss Leeson.""Oh, yeah," kata Gezer bintang kecil, "Aku tahu sebagai salah satu dari mereka tentang gaya lengan mereka akan memakai berikutnya jatuh Mars.""Yah, benar-benar!" kata Miss Longnecker. "Bintang Anda merujuk ke adalah Gamma, dari konstelasi Cassiopeia. Hal ini hampir kedua besarnya, dan adalah bagian meridian--""Oh," ujar Evans Tn. sangat muda, "Saya pikir Billy Jackson adalah nama yang jauh lebih baik untuk itu.""Sama di sini," kata Mr Hoover, bernapas keras defiance untuk Miss Longnecker. "Saya pikir Miss Leeson berhak sama banyak nama bintang sebagai salah satu orang tua memiliki astrolog.""Yah, benar-benar!" kata Miss Longnecker."Saya bertanya-tanya apakah itu adalah sebuah bintang jatuh," kata Miss Dorn. "Aku memukul sembilan bebek dan kelinci dari sepuluh di galeri di Coney minggu.""Dia tidak muncul sangat baik dari bawah sini," kata Miss Leeson. "Anda harus melihat dia dari kamarku. Anda tahu Anda dapat melihat bintang-bintang bahkan di siang hari dari dasar sumur. Pada malam kamarku seperti poros batubara tambang, dan itu membuat Billy Jackson terlihat seperti pin besar berlian yang malam mengikatkan kimononya dengan."Ada datang suatu waktu setelah itu ketika Miss Leeson membawa dokumen tangguh rumah untuk menyalin. Dan ketika ia keluar di pagi hari, bukan bekerja, dia pergi dari kantor dan membiarkan hati meleleh di menetes dingin penolakan ditularkan melalui kurang ajar boys kantor. Hal ini berlangsung.Ada datang malam ketika ia letih menaiki ibu Parker stoop jam saat ia selalu kembali dari nya makan malam di restoran. Tetapi ia tidak makan malam.Seperti dia melangkah ke Balai Tn. Hoover bertemu dengannya dan memanfaatkan kesempatan. Dia memintanya untuk menikah dengannya, dan kegemukan nya melayang di atas dirinya seperti avalanche. Ia menghindar dan tertangkap pagar. Dia mencoba untuk tangannya, dan ia mengangkat dan memukul dia lemah di wajah. Langkah demi langkah dia pergi, menyeret dirinya oleh pagar. Dia lulus Mr Skidder pintu seperti dia adalah merah-tinta arah panggung untuk Myrtle Delorme (Miss Leeson) di komedi (sampainya), untuk "Marquis di panggung dari L ke sisi perhitungan." Menaiki tangga berkarpet dia merangkak terakhir dan membuka pintu kamar skylight.Dia adalah terlalu lemah untuk lampu atau untuk menanggalkan pakaian. Ia jatuh pada besi cot, tubuhnya rapuh yang hampir pengosongan springs dipakai. Dan itu Erebus ruang skylight, ia perlahan-lahan mengangkat dia kelopak mata berat, dan tersenyum.Untuk Billy Jackson bersinar turun nya, tenang dan cerah dan konstan melalui skylight. Ada tidak ada dunia tentang dirinya. Dia tenggelam dalam jurang kegelapan, dengan tapi itu persegi kecil kusam cahaya membingkai bintang bahwa dia begitu whimsically dan oh, jadi ineffectually bernama. Miss Longnecker harus benar; itu Gamma, dari konstelasi Cassiopeia, dan tidak Billy Jackson. Dan namun dia tidak bisa membiarkan hal itu menjadi Gamma.Seperti dia berbaring di punggungnya dia mencoba dua kali untuk mengangkat lengannya. Ketiga kalinya dia punya dua jari tipis ke bibirnya dan meniup ciuman dari pit hitam untuk Billy Jackson. Lengan jatuh kembali limply."Selamat tinggal, Billy," dia bersungut samar-samar. "Yo