The Good Doctor Ambrose

by Albert Webster, Jr.

In a crypt of the greatest library of one of our great cities, there dwelt the aged and respectable janitor, together with his daughter and a servant.

The main floor of the building rested upon a series of heavy columns; and as it had appeared that the spaces between them were likely to be unemployed for the storage of waste and rubbish, a shrewd spirit among the managers suggested that a few board partitions be erected, and that the dutiful janitor and his wife be invited to occupy the apartments thus made, at an abatement of a hundred dollars from his yearly salary for rent. The idea was adopted with acclaim, for it was at once perceived that, by establishing the janitor in the building, the necessity of purchasing the services of a watchman was obviated at a blow.

This was a stroke of good business; but, concealing their economical policy under many smiles of benevolent and generous import, the astute board mentioned the plan to the grateful Corbin, who hastened to accept it with tears of gratitude, and who never failed to speak of their tender consideration at least once a day until the hour of his death.

Thus it was that the janitor became domiciled in the cellar. But his apartments were not at all times unpleasant. To be sure, his good wife died in one of them from bronchial disease, contracted from the damps which exhaled from the walls in the spring-time, and the dairyman could never be made to descend to the kitchen, but would always leave the filled pitcher near the low window-sill, where it was more handy for the cats than for Corbin’s servants; but, barring these and a few minor reasons, the little rooms were not wholly unendurable. For a few hours on each pleasant day the sun came in at the back-… Read More