On turning back, he met Slimy at the door; the man nodded in his wonted way, grinning like a grisly phantom, and beckoned Waymark to follow him upstairs.

The woman below had closed her door again, and in all probability no one observed the two entering together.
Waymark sat down amid the collection of nondescript articles which always filled the room, and waited for the tenant to produce his rent.
Slimy seemed to have other things in mind.

After closing the door, he too had taken a seat, upon a heap of filthy sacking, and was running his fingers through the shock of black hair which made his beard.
Waymark examined him.

There was no sign of intoxication, but something was evidently working in the man's mind, and his breath came quickly, with a kind of asthmatic pant, from between his thin lips, still parted in the uncanny grin.
"Mr.Waymark," he began at length.
"Well ?" "I ain't got no rent." "That's bad.

You're two weeks behind, you know." "Mr.Waymark." The single eye fixed itself on Waymark's face in a way which made the latter feel uncomfortable.
"Well ?" "I ain't a-gem' to pay you no more rent, nor yet no one else, maybe." "How's that ?" "'Cos I ain't, and 'cos I'm tired o' payin' rent." "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to get on without, though," said Waymark, trying to get into the jocular tone he sometimes adopted with Slimy, but scarcely succeeding.
"Mr.Waymark." There was clearly something wrong.