No Soliciting

I bought a charming old house with steep gables and a brickwork fireplace that was a miracle of intricate design. It even had hand painted individual tiles in front of it; each tile representing a different scene from Holland, like windmills and tulips. I moved in during the afternoon on a hot summer day and treated myself to a glass of lemonade, made from lemons from my own tree in the backyard. 
Just above the doorbell next to the front door was fastened a brass plaque, still shiny, that read "No Soliciting."  I liked that -- it made me feel classy.
As I sipped my lemonade that first day in my new home the doorbell rang. I answered it -- to find a salesman peddling rosewater!
"Very handy item to have around" he said, grinning. "They use a lot of it in the Middle East for their cuisine."
"Can't you read the sign?" I asked him crossly, pointing at the brass plaque. "No soliciting. Now go away." 
He didn't put up a fuss; just pretended to tip a hat to me and walked down the steps and slid quietly away.
I had barely sat down when the bell rang again.
This time it was a lady selling oaken buckets. 
"I make them myself" she said cheerfully, ignoring my stern features. They looked pretty sturdy. She had beads of sweat across her upper lip.
"Those must be awful heavy to carry around" I said.
"That they are" she admitted. She eyed the glass of lemonade I was holding with longing. I nearly invited her in, but then remembered the sacred brass plaque that I was in duty bound to honor.
"I'm sorry" I told her. "But you can't be selling things around here. You could get in trouble. Good luck to you, somewhere else." And I closed the door in her weary face. 
I decided to make a tuna fish sandwich to go with my lemonade, and when I came out of the kitchen there was a tall thin man, dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, putting a glossy black leather briefcase on the coffee table.
"This beats everything!" I said to him angrily. "You didn't even bother to ring the doorbell? What are YOU selling -- rudeness?"
He looked at me, startled. His pince nez fell off his nose and dangled by his side on a wide black ribbon. Who wears those kind of glasses anymore? This was an outrage! 
"What the blazes are you doing in my house?" he asked me.
"Your house?" I replied. "This is MY house, buddy. And you'd better get out before I call the cops!"
He seemed to puff up like a toad on the stove.
"What? What?" he repeated, glowering like a lighthouse. "I shall call the police this very instant myself!" He strode over to an alcove under the stairs and dialed on an old black rotary phone. I hadn't really noticed it there before. This was getting weird.
"Hello, Joe?" he said into the receiver. "This is Ross. Yes, I'm fine, thanks. But I've got some kind of crank in my living room who claims he lives here. Can you come down and get him out? I'm at 125 Barker Street. Okay, thanks." He came over to me with a smug expression. "That was Joe, the chief of police. An old friend. He'll settle your hash -- you squatter!"
We glared at each other in silence until Joe arrived. He was out of uniform.
"I was on my way to the river for some fishing" he explained as he shook the intruder's hand and gave me a cold look. "Now what's this all about?"
I interrupted pince nez as he started to dither, to explain I had just bought the house, had all the papers in the desk in the dining room, and that this crazy person had barged right in to say it was his house. "So, chief, I'd appreciate it if you'd take him down to the laughing academy where he belongs." 
Joe rubbed his chin, looking back and forth between the two of us.
"Well" he finally said, "I've known Ross here for a long time. He sells insurance and we've both been members of the Rotary Club together for years and years. You, on the other hand, I have never seen before . . ."
I didn't bother to reply, just went into the dining room and brought back the papers showing the house was mine and that I was making mortgage payments to the local bank for it. 
"Who sold you this place?" asked Joe the chief.
"Truax Realty" I said. "Judy Truax herself showed me the place and helped me get the mortgage."
"Well, I've known Judy for years, just like Ross here. Sound as a dollar, she is. I can't understand how such a thing can happen . . . "
"Poppycock!" said pince nez loudly. "Joe, you just escort this bindlestiff out of here and lock him up. Give him the rubber hose treatment for all I care. He's a lunatic!"
Suddenly Joe the chief exploded at the both of us.
"Shaddup, you two mugs!" he yelled, his face turning crimson. "I'm sick and tired of trying to sort out these domestic disputes. You two are going to have to learn to live together  -- and do it right now, dammit. Or I'll put both of yez in jail and throw away the key!"
He shook his finger in both our faces, spittle leaking out of his compressed lips, and then left -- giving the door such a slam I thought it would break the hinges. 
"Adamant, isn't he?" said pince nez in a low voice.
"Indubitably" I replied softly. 

I wasn't about to give up my house, and Ross, the guy with the antique eyeglasses, wouldn't leave either. So we made the best of it. I slept in the master bedroom and let Ross sleep in the guestroom. Turns out we both liked bran flakes for breakfast, so there was no contention there. And since he went to his office every morning at eight and didn't come back until five-thirty, I had the house all to myself most of the day. In the evenings he taught me to play backgammon and I told him stories of Burma in the old days, when I logged teak wood in the swamps around Thandwe and made a fortune in just a few years. I'd been retired ever since, living off the interest, and collecting horsehair buttons as a hobby.
 We actually scrapped along pretty well together for some time. Then one day Joe the police chief called me while Ross was at the office.
"Bad news, I'm afraid" he said right off the bat. "Seems that Judy Truax has been scamming customers right and left for years. She never had the right to sell any of those old houses, like the one you thought you bought, and she was in cahoots with the bank to write out phony mortgage documents and collect nice fat fees from victims like you. I'm sorry to say that the house still belongs to Ross, not you. You have no right to be there." 
"Okay" I gulped. "I'll pack my bags and tell Ross about it when he gets home at five-thirty."
"Sorry to be the bearer of such lousy news -- if you need a place to bunk for a few night you can come down to the jail. The food's not too bad and I'll turn the thermostat up a little" said the chief. He wasn't such a bad guy, after all.
"Thanks" I said, choking back tears. "I'll think about it." By then I'd lost most of my money due to the capital gains tariff. 
When Ross got home I told him everything, then shook his hand and told him it had been a real pleasure to get to know him. He wouldn't let go of my hand, but instead drew me into an embrace.
"You know the old Spanish proverb -- mi casa es su casa?" he asked me. "Well, that's the way it'll be around here. My house is your house for as long as you like." 
I couldn't speak for a while. We were both crying like babies. 
"Okay, Ross" I finally managed. "If you want me to keep beating you at backgammon I'll stick around." 
But it was Ross who left first. He died the next year from stomach cancer. Those bran flakes didn't do him any good after all. In his will he left me the house, free and clear. As well as his three pair of pince nez. What a guy . . . 
After the funeral I unscrewed the "No Soliciting" plaque and put it in a drawer. I figured things would be kinda lonely without Ross around anymore, and maybe that rose water guy might come back to show me how to cook with the stuff.