In order to avoid a misunderstanding which has often been a cause
for dissatisfaction in our tenants, we beg to call your attention
to that clause in your lease which restrains the tenant from
driving any nails into the walls, or in any way defacing or marring
the walls or woodwork of the premises.
Trusting that you find the house entirely as represented,
Very truly yours,
COOPER & COOPER, Agents.
“Humph!” said she, very much taken aback.
Lynn looked up from her breakfast.
“What is it, auntie?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said the other calmly. “Simply one of the necessary
annoyances of a business career.”
She was prepared to say a good deal more than that to a certain person.
She was by no means stupid. She put two and two together, and chalked up
a mighty black four against that fraudulent carpenter. He was the
talebearer. Very well--only wait until he presented himself again!
In the meantime the indomitable woman finished the carpentering herself.
The noise of the hammering made her very nervous, but she made up her
mind to defy Cooper & Cooper if they should appear. She had to have
those shelves, and she would have them.
That afternoon a man came by, asking for work. He said he was a
gardener; and after Mrs. Journay had cross-examined him until he was
reduced to an abject condition, and she felt sure he was no spy, she set
him to work.
The next morning she had another letter from Cooper & Cooper, pointing
out to her that it was strictly prohibited to tenants to remove shrubs
in the garden, to lop off branches from trees, or in any way to mar or
deface the garden.
This time she wrote a tart answer, remarking that the garden was in a
lamentable condition which no one could deface or mar, that the branches
lopped away had been those which shut off light from the house, and that
she would really be justified in sending the landlord a bill for this
work. Nevertheless, she did not employ the gardener again.
For a few days she and her niece were invisibly busy within the house,
but at last, one bright morning, they came out with a ladder, which Mrs.
Journay held while Lynn climbed up it and hung out a glittering gilt
signboard, lettered in black: