BEING INSIDE Eckerd's secret apartment was like being inside a whisky barrel, or beneath the ceiling of a barrel-vaulted church, or taking shelter under a tight-clad boat turned upside down against the storm, a kind of ark.

It was very high, above all the scenery and ropes and pulleys, and very dry, just beneath the roof.

The ark had room for just one animal, a cat. It was what they call the Egyptian breed, gray in color with very cool blue eyes. Max, his name was, more like a monkey than a cat, with a comic monkey turn that had him leaping from a cupboard and landing on his master's head. This was a good joke when it was not your head being landed on, but I was soon extremely put out by his manners in respect of chamber pots or lack thereof.

There was no facility for washing, cooking, or other personal matters, and although the whole was draped and hung with rugs and fabrics such as an artist might use to create a scene, and although there was also a long low settee where you might pay a poor girl to be an odalisque, there were also a number of straw pallets arranged on the floor, and these suggested a church at a time of war or flooding. On one of these Mrs. Watkins now sat, a blanket wrapped around her lap, making a cushion for her husband's tortured head. I quickly sensed that my six companions were parties to a plan from which I had been excluded.

At first I was relieved, but then I was very bloody irritated to understand they had been selling art when they might have benefited from my experience in the world. They did not know a bloody thing-not even Mathilde-about the services I had performed for the Marquis de Tilbot. Can you imagine them selling Watkins' birds for fifty cents?

When I saw that oaf tuck the engraving into his woolly underpants…

In any case: a room like a boat. Straw mattresses. Rugs. Odalisques and so on. Then-all along the gentle golden walls, stacked in some cases, pinned in others-a great number of works of art including those paintings Mathilde had removed from the Greenwich Street farmhouse, from under my nose, from above my arse. Now here they were, with Watkins' engravings to keep them company. Also to be noted very bloody bene was the Egyptian cat who sprayed first one canvas and then another while no one bothered to tell him to mind his manners. I was exceedingly annoyed to see artists party to this pissing.

I bathed my tongue in sparkling wine until my organs cooled. Most politely and carefully I asked my Good Companions-did they think it spoke well for their character that they were prepared to sell Watkins' engravings for fifty cents?

Eckerd would not take the bait.

Nor could I argue with Mathilde.

So I turned to Mrs. Watkins who was busy stroking the short soft hair on her husband's head.

I asked her what that engraving had cost her, the one they sold for half a dollar.

"Me? Dearie me, not a penny."

"But was it not a warbler?"

"Yes it was, dearie."

"Then did you not invest a great deal of courage on the banks of the Missouri River?" I knew of what I spoke, for her doting husband had lectured me at length. I knew the cost of that engraving-the horrid ulcer that still grew down to her living bone.

Mathilde said they all valued art. They thought of nothing else.

"Then why," I asked, "does Watkins have his plates here to be corroded by the cat?"

If a sigh is a reply, he answered me.

On a low bench in a corner by the door there were more plates, higgledy-piggledy, not even protected by a sheet of paper. I took the uppermost one which happened to portray, by chance, a spoonbill parrot.

"Return that sir."

"Why? Do you not know me?"

"Return it."

"Please," said Mathilde, "my dear Parrot. Please do not be thin-skinned."

She tried to take the plate. I would not permit it.

Watkins raised his head and screeched as I carefully wrapped his copper plate.

Mathilde shook her head.

Eckerd asked me what it was that I intended.

I said he must accept that the theater is each night washed into the sea, it sinks, it drowns, so even the great Burbage is forgotten. But we can pull down an entire country and chop up the king's heart and fry it with the kidneys, and still the paintings will survive.

Watkins said I should read the parable of the talents.

I said he could wipe his bottom with his Bible.

A great number of words followed and it was only when we quietened down that I understood my friends were-on the basis of some secret understanding-to sleep the night on these pallets on the floor. What could I do but lie down also with the copper plate safe beneath my head? And there we all stayed, grubs in blankets, not knowing what we would become. In the night a huge wind blew through the theater below us. I heard it moan, and something crashed. Then it was inside the walls. Then Mathilde came onto my mattress and clamped herself around me like a padlock. I held her and felt her breath beneath my chin.

NO CHAMBER POTS that I could find, although I had been up and searching often in the night. I was ready to use the wine bottle when I heard a tread upon the stairs.

Thank the suffering Jesus, I thought. Someone was fiddling with a chain. Stuff me with little green apples. There was Eckerd-I had thought him sleeping behind my back but now he was in front of me. Someone had been stuffing carbon paper down his mouth.

"It is done," he said.

"Give me the damn pot."

"What pot?"

"I am about to burst."

"In the drawer," he said, and I saw smuts of carbon on his glittering gold coat. He had no explanation, only newspapers beneath his arm.

"Show me the drawer," I cried in the midst of a general resurrection of the bodies on the floor. "Give me the pot."

This was delivered from behind my back, a tin bucket in the hand of Mrs. Watkins. It seems the custom was to step out on the landing, but as no one instructed me I did my business as modestly as the circumstances permitted.

When I had time to pay attention to the others I found them in deep contemplation of the New York Sentinel. Naturally I assumed it was a write-up of the play. This misunderstanding was strengthened by Watkins' agitation which suggested that his engravings had a bad reception. Eckerd and Miss Desclee looked rosy in comparison. They perched on the settee and Mathilde leaned over them, frowning as she always did when called to interpret long stretches of the English language. Meanwhile Maman looked from face to face to read what effect the news was having.

FIRE AT MURDER HOUSE

It Was Rapid and Caused Consternation for a Time

Property of Mr. Eckerd

Much Loss Averted

The house at 565 Greenwich Street which was made notorious in living memory by the hideous Muldoon murders was last night burnt to the ground in a conflagration so fierce it was, for a time, expected to destroy an inn on the other side of Greenwich Street, which is, at this point, some 25 feet wide. The Bull Inn, a great favorite with captains of the London packets, was saved thanks to the enthusiasm of its patrons. The timber yard of Mr. Fachetti lost its fence, and a small quantity of cedar was consumed.

The owner of 565 Greenwich Street, returning home from Eckerd's Elysium, of which he is the well-known public promoter, soon became a highly visible and valiant member of the bucket brigade and showed himself, in his desperate efforts to protect his property, quite careless of the gold tuxedo which many of us have seen beneath the footlights.

The cause of Mr. Eckerd's clear distress was, it was soon known, not only the loss of his recently acquired dwelling but a collection of letters from many European artists and musicians. Also missing was a historic tiara, once the property of his grandmother. Neighbors joined Mr. Eckerd in sifting through the hot ashes, where, not without numerous burns, some of which were judged severe, a certain quantity of melted gold was recovered. Although this metal will, of course, bring a not insubstantial price as specie, its value is expected to be only a fraction of the melted treasure.