The Skylight Room
FIRST MRS. PARKER would show you the double parlors. 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 parlors.
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
