About this story
You pawn your waistcoat, spend the first coin on paper rather than bread, give the last one to a beggar, and push the finished article through the hatch at a newspaper office. Then a woman under a green parasol asks whether you have been following her — you have already named her Ylajali — and the clerk comes out after you holding your pages and an envelope.
Who you’ll meet
The taller of the two women under the green parasol, the one the reader invents a name for, turning to ask the stranger behind her a direct question, with her companion stepping in at her arm.
How it opens
Morning found you awake in the rented attic before the bells began.
LandladyYour room contains one chair, one bed, and three unpaid beginnings.
LandladyYour rent notice is on the door, beneath the nail where your coat hung.
LandladyI am going downstairs, and I expect an answer before you follow.
I possess a pencil, if not yet the money.
LandladyA pencil writes promises more readily than it pays rent.