On days when there was much steam to his cooking, the harvest of veneer from the bureau was unusually generous.

Over the bed, hoisted by a tackle to the ceiling, was his bicycle.

At first he had tried to keep it in the basement; but the tribe of Silva, loosening the bearings and puncturing the tires, had driven him out.

Next he attempted the tiny front porch, until a howling southeaster drenched the wheel a night-long.
Then he had retreated with it to his room and slung it aloft.
A small closet contained his clothes and the books he had accumulated and for which there was no room on the table or under the table.

Hand in hand with reading, he had developed the habit of making notes, and so copiously did he make them that there would have been no existence for him in the confined quarters had he not rigged several clothes-lines across the room on which the notes were hung.