He'd have given away his tattoos long ago,
if he could. He's one of the people I'm sorriest for."
If I happened to spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polish
violin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend the
stairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fall
into a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear him
practice, so he always left his door open, and watched who came and went.
There was a coolness between the Pole and Lena's landlord on her account.
Old Colonel Raleigh had come to Lincoln from Kentucky and invested an
inherited fortune in real estate, at the time of inflated prices. Now he
sat day after day in his office in the Raleigh Block, trying to discover
where his money had gone and how he could get some of it back. He was a
widower, and found very little congenial companionship in this casual
Western city. Lena's good looks and gentle manners appealed to him. He
said her voice reminded him of Southern voices, and he found as many
opportunities of hearing it as possible. He painted and papered her rooms
for her that spring, and put in a porcelain bathtub in place of the tin
one that had satisfied the former tenant. While these repairs were being
made, the old gentleman often dropped in to consult Lena's preferences.
She told me with amusement how Ordinsky, the Pole, had presented himself
at her door one evening, and said that if the landlord was annoying her by
his attentions, he would promptly put a stop to it.
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