"Well?" asked Hayden.

"And now," Quimby went on, "I find you trespassing in a hotel left in my care—the tables are turned. I ought to show you the door. I ought to put you out."

"Try it," sneered Hayden.

"No," answered Quimby, "I ain't going to do it. Maybe it's because I've grown timid, brooding over my failure. And maybe it's because I know who's got the seventh key."

Hayden made no reply. No one stirred for a minute, and then Quimby moved away, and went out through the dining-room door.



CHAPTER XV

TABLE TALK

The seventh key! Mr. Magee thrilled at the mention of it. So Elijah Quimby knew the identity and the mission of the man who hid in the annex. Did any one else? Magee looked at the broad acreage of the mayor's face, at the ancient lemon of Max's, at Bland's, frightened and thoughtful, at Hayden's, concerned but smiling. Did any one else know? Ah, yes, of course. Down the stairs the professor of Comparative Literature felt his way to food.

"Is dinner ready?" he asked, peering about.

The candles flickered weakly as they fought the stronger shadows; winter roared at the windows; somewhere above a door crashed shut. Close to its final scene drew the drama at Baldpate Inn. Mr. Magee knew it, he could not have told why. The others seemed to know it, too. In silence they waited while the hermit scurried along his dim way preparing the meal. In silence they sat while Miss Norton and her mother descended. Once there was a little flurry of interest when Miss Thornhill and Hayden met at the foot of the stairs.

"Myra!" Hayden cried. "In heaven's name—what does this mean?"

"Unfortunately," said the girl, "I know—all it means."

And Hayden fell back into the shadows.

Finally the attitude of the hermit suggested that the dinner was ready.

"I guess you might as well sit down," he remarked. "It's all fixed, what there is to fix. This place don't need a cook, it needs a commissary department."

"Peters," reproved Magee. "That's hardly courteous to our guests."

"Living alone on the mountain," replied the hermit from the dining-room door, "you get to have such a high regard for the truth you can't put courtesy first. You want to, but you haven't the heart."

The winter guests took their places at the table, and the second December dinner at Baldpate Inn got under way. But not so genially as on the previous night did it progress. On the faces of those about him Mr. Magee noted worry and suspicion; now and again menacing cold eyes were turned upon him; evidently first in the thoughts of those at table was a little package rich in treasure; and evidently first in the thoughts of most of them, as the probable holder of that package, was Mr. Magee himself. Several times he looked up to find Max's cat-like eyes upon him, sinister and cruel behind the incongruous gold-rimmed glasses; several times he saw Hayden's eyes, hostile and angry, seek his face. They were desperate; they would stop at nothing; Mr. Magee felt that as the drama drew to its close they saw him and him alone between them and their golden desires.

"Before I came up here to be a hermit," remarked Cargan contemporaneously with the removal of the soup, "which I may say in passing I ain't been able to be with any success owing to the popularity of the sport on Baldpate Mountain, there was never any candles on the table where I et. No, sir. I left them to the people up on the avenue—to Mr. Hayden and his kind that like to work in dim surroundings—I was always strong for a bright light on my food. What I'm afraid of is that I'll get the habit up here, and will be wanting Charlie to set out a silver candelabrum with my lager. Candles'd be quite an innovation at Charlie's, wouldn't they, Lou?"

"Too swell for Charlie's," commented Mr. Max. "Except after closing hours. I've seen 'em in use there then, but the idea wasn't glory and decoration."

"I hope you don't dislike the candles, Mr. Cargan," remarked Miss Norton. "They add such a lot to the romance of the affair, don't you think? I'm terribly thrilled by all this. The rattling of the windows, and the flickering light—two lines of a poem keep running through my head:

"'My lord he followed after one who whispered in his ear— The weeping of the candles and the wind is all I hear.'

I don't know who the lord was, nor what he followed—perhaps the seventh key. But the weeping candles and the wind seem so romantic—and so like Baldpate Inn to-night."

"If I had a daughter your age," commented Cargan, not unkindly, "she'd be at home reading Laura Jean Libbey by the fire, and not chasing after romance on a mountain."

"That would be best for her, I'm sure," replied the girl sweetly. "For then she wouldn't be likely to find out things about her father that would prove disquieting."

"Dearie!" cried Mrs. Norton. No one else spoke, but all looked at the mayor. He was busily engaged with his food. Smiling his amusement, Mr. Magee sought to direct the conversation into less personal channels.

"We hear so much about romance, especially since its widely advertised death," he said. "And to every man I ever met, it meant something different. Mr. Cargan, speaking as a broad-minded man of the world—what does romance mean to you?"

The mayor ran his fingers through his graying hair, and considered seriously.

"Romance," he reflected. "Well, I ain't much on the talk out of books. But here's what I see when you say that word to me. It's the night before election, and I'm standing in the front window of the little room on Main Street where the boys can always find me. Down the street I hear the snarl and rumble of bands, and pretty soon I see the yellow flicker of torches, like the flicker of that candle, and the bobbing of banners. And then—the boys march by. All the boys! Pat Doherty, and Bob Larsen, and Matt Sanders—all the boys! And when they get to my window they wave their hats and cheer. Just a fat old man in that window, but they'll go to the pavement with any guy that knocks him. They're loyal. They're for me. And so they march by—cheering and singing—all the boys—just for me to see and hear. Well—that—that's romance to me."

"Power," translated Mr. Magee.

"Yes, sir," cried the mayor. "I know I've got them. All the reformers in the world can't spoil my thrill then. They're mine. I guess old Napoleon knew that thrill. I guess he was the greatest romancer the world ever knew. When he marched over the mountains with his starving bunch—and looked back and saw them in rags and suffering—for him—well I reckon old Nap was as close to romance then as any man ever gets."

"I wonder," answered Mr. Magee. It came to him suddenly that in each person's definition of this intangible thing might lie exposed something of both character and calling. At the far end of the table Mrs. Norton's lined tired face met his gaze. To her he put his question.

"Well," she answered, and her voice seemed softer than its wont, "I ain't thought much of that word for a good many years now. But when I do—say, I seem to see myself sitting on our porch back home—thirty years ago. I've got on a simple little muslin dress, and I'm slender as Elsie Janis, and the color in my cheeks is—well, it's the sort that Norton likes. And my hair—but—I'm thinking of him, of Norton. He's told me he wants to make me happy for life, and I've about decided I'll let him try. I see him—coming up our front walk. Coming to call on me—have I mentioned I've got a figure—a real sweet figure? That's about what romance means to me."

"Youth, dear?" asks Miss Norton gently.

"That's it, dearie," answered the older woman dreamily. "Youth."

For a time those about the table sat in silence, picturing no doubt the slender figure on the steps of that porch long ago. Not without a humorous sort of pity did they glance occasionally toward the woman whom Norton had begged to make happy. The professor of Comparative Literature was the first to break the silence.

"The dictionary," he remarked academically, "would define romance as a species of fictitious writing originally composed in the Romance dialects, and afterward in prose. But—the dictionary is prosaic, it has no soul. Shall I tell you what romance means to me? I will. I see a man toiling in a dim laboratory, where there are strange fires and stranger odors. Night and day he experiments, the love of his kind in his eyes, a desire to help in his heart. And then—the golden moment—the great moment in that quiet dreary cell—the moment of the discovery. A serum, a formula—what not. He gives it to the world and a few of the sick are well again, and a few of the sorrowful are glad. Romance means neither youth nor power to me. It means—service."

He bent his dim old eyes on his food, and Mr. Magee gazed at him with a new wonder. Odd sentiments these from an old man who robbed fireplaces, held up hermits, and engaged in midnight conferences by the annex door. More than ever Magee was baffled, enthralled, amused. Now Mr. Max leered about the table and contributed his unsavory bit.

"Funny, ain't it," he remarked, "the different things the same word means to a bunch of folks. Say romance to me, and I don't see no dim laboratory. I don't see nothing dim. I see the brightest lights in the world, and the best food, and somebody, maybe, dancing the latest freak dance in between the tables. And an orchestra playing in the distance—classy dames all about—a taxi clicking at the door. And me sending word to the chauffeur 'Let her click till the milk carts rumble—I can pay.' Say—that sure is romance to me."

"Mr. Hayden," remarked Magee, "are we to hear from you?"

Hayden hesitated, and looked for a moment into the black eyes of Myra Thornhill.

"My idea has often been contradicted," he said, keeping his gaze on the girl, "it may be again. But to me the greatest romance in the world is the romance of money making—dollar piling on dollar in the vaults of the man who started with a shoe-string, and hope, and nerve. I see him fighting for the first thousand—and then I see his pile growing, slowly at first—faster—faster—faster—until a motor-car brings him to his office, and men speak his name with awe in the streets."

"Money," commented Miss Thornhill contemptuously. "What an idea of romance for a man."

"I did not expect," replied Hayden, "that my definition would pass unchallenged. My past experiences—" he looked meaningly at the girl—"had led me to be prepared for that. But it is my definition—I spoke the truth. You must give me credit for that."

"I ain't one to blame you," sneered Cargan, "for wanting it noticed when you do side-step a lie. Yes, I certainly—"

"See here, Cargan," blazed Hayden.

"Yes, you did speak the truth," put in Miss Thornhill hastily. "You mentioned one word in your definition—it was a desecration to drag it in—hope. For me romance means only—hope. And I'm afraid there are a pitiful number in the world to whom it means the same."

"We ain't heard from the young woman who started all this fuss over a little word," Mr. Cargan reminded them.

"That's right, dearie," said Mrs. Norton. "You got to contribute."

"Yes," agreed the girl with the "locks crisped like golden wire," "I will. But it's hard. One's ideas change so rapidly. A moment ago if you had said romance to me, I might have babbled of shady corners, of whisperings on the stair, of walks down the mountain in the moonlight—or even on the hotel balcony." She smiled gaily at Magee. "Perhaps to-morrow, too, the word might mean such rapturous things to me. But to-night—life is too real and earnest to-night. Service—Professor Bolton was right—service is often romance. It may mean the discovery of a serum—it may mean so cruel a thing as the blighting of another's life romance." She gazed steadily at the stolid Cargan. "It may mean putting an end forever to those picturesque parades past the window of the little room on Main Street—the room where the boys can always find the mayor of Reuton."

Still she gazed steadily into Cargan's eyes. And with an amused smile the mayor gazed back.

"You wouldn't be so cruel as that," he assured her easily; "a nice attractive girl like you."

The dinner was at an end; without a word the sly little professor rose from the table and hurriedly ascended the stairs. Mr. Magee watched him disappear, and resolved to follow quickly on his heels. But first he paused to give his own version of the word under discussion.

"Strange," he remarked, "that none of you gets the picture I do. Romance—it is here—at your feet in Baldpate Inn. A man climbs the mountain to be alone with his thoughts, to forget the melodrama of life, to get away from the swift action of the world, and meditate. He is alone—for very near an hour. Then a telephone bell tinkles, and a youth rises out of the dark to prate of a lost Arabella, and haberdashery. A shot rings out, as the immemorial custom with shots, and in comes a professor of Comparative Literature, with a perforation in his derby hat. A professional hermit arrives to teach the amateur the fine points of the game. A charming maid comes in—too late for breakfast—but in plenty of time for walks on the balcony in the moonlight. The mayor of a municipality condescends to stay for dinner. A battle in the snow ensues. There is a weird talk of—a sum of money. More guests arrive. Dark hints of a seventh key. Why, bless you, you needn't stir from Baldpate Inn in search of your romance."

He crossed the floor hastily, and put one foot on the lower step of Baldpate's grand stairway. He kept it there. For from the shadows of the landing Professor Bolton emerged, his blasted derby once more on his head, his overcoat buttoned tight, his ear-muffs in place, his traveling-bag and green umbrella in tow.

"What, Professor," cried Magee, "you're leaving?"

Now, truly, the end of the drama had come. Mr. Magee felt his heart beat wildly. What was the end to be? What did this calm departure mean? Surely the little man descending the stair was not, Daniel-like, thrusting himself into this lion's den with the precious package in his possession?

"Yes," the old man was saying slowly. "I am about to leave. The decision came suddenly. I am sorry to go. Certainly I have enjoyed these chance meetings."

"See here, Doc," said Mr. Bland, uneasily feeling of his purple tie, "you're not going back and let them reporters have another fling at you?"

"I fear I must," replied the old man. "My duty calls. Yes, they will hound me. I shall hear much of peroxide blondes. I shall be asked again to name the ten greatest in history,—a difficult, not to say dangerous task. But I must face the—er—music, as the vulgar expression goes. I bid you good-by, Mr. Bland. We part friends, I am sure. Again be comforted by the thought that I do not hold the ruined derby against you. Even though, as I have remarked with unpleasant truth, the honorarium of a professor at our university is not large."

He turned to Magee.

"I regret more than I can say," he continued, "parting from you. My eyes fell upon you first on entering this place—we have had exciting times together. My dear Miss Norton—knowing you has refreshed an old man's heart. I might compare you to another with yellow locks—but I leave that to my younger—er—colleagues. Mr. Cargan—good-by. My acquaintance with you I shall always look back on—"

But the mayor of Reuton, Max and Bland closed in on the old man.

"Now look here, Doc," interrupted Cargan. "You're bluffing. Do you get me? You're trying to put something over. I don't want to be rough—I like you—but I got to get a glimpse at the inside of that satchel. And I got to examine your personal make-up a bit."

"Dear, dear," smiled Professor Bolton, "you don't think I would steal? A man in my position? Absurd. Look through my poor luggage if you desire. You will find nothing but the usual appurtenances of travel."

He stood docilely in the middle of the floor, and blinked at the group around him.

Mr. Magee waited to hear no more. It was quite apparent that this wise little man carried no package wildly sought by Baldpate's winter guests. Quietly and quickly Magee disappeared up the broad stair, and tried the professor's door. It was locked. Inside he could hear a window banging back and forth in the storm. He ran through number seven and out upon the snow-covered balcony.

There he bumped full into a shadowy figure hurrying in the opposite direction.



CHAPTER XVI

A MAN FROM THE DARK

For fully five seconds Mr. Magee and the man with whom he had collided stood facing each other on the balcony. The identical moon of the summer romances now hung in the sky, and in its white glare Baldpate Mountain glittered like a Christmas-card. Suddenly the wind broke a small branch from one of the near-by trees and tossed it lightly on the snow beside the two men—as though it were a signal for battle.

"A lucky chance," said Mr. Magee. "You're a man I've been longing to meet. Especially since the professor left his window open this afternoon."

"Indeed," replied the other calmly. "May I ask what you want of me?"

"Certainly." Mr. Magee laughed. "A little package. I think it's in your pocket at this minute. A package no bigger than a man's hand."

The stranger made no reply, but looked quickly about, over his shoulder at the path along which he had come, and then past Mr. Magee at the road that led to freedom.

"I think it's in your pocket," repeated Mr. Magee, "and I'm going to find out."

"I haven't time to argue with you," said the holder of the seventh key. His voice was cold, calculating, harsh. "Get out of my way and let me pass. Or—"

"Or what?" asked Billy Magee.

He watched the man lunge toward him in the moonlight. He saw the fist that had the night before been the Waterloo of Mr. Max and the mayor start on a swift true course for his head. Quickly he dodged to one side and closed with his opponent.

Back and forth through the snow they ploughed, panting, grappling, straining. Mr. Magee soon realized that his adversary was no weakling. He was forced to call into play muscles he had not used in what seemed ages—not since he sported of an afternoon in a rather odorous college gymnasium. In moonlight and shadow, up and down, they reeled, staggered, stumbled, the sole jarring notes in that picture of Baldpate on a quiet winter's night.

"You queered the game last time," muttered the stranger. "But you'll never queer it again."

Mr. Magee saved his breath. Together they crashed against the side of the inn. Together they squirmed away, across the balcony to the railing. Still back and forth, now in the moonlight, now in shadow, wildly they fought. Once Mr. Magee felt his feet slip from beneath him, but caught himself in time. His strength was going—surely—quickly. Then suddenly his opponent seemed to weaken in his grip. With a supreme effort Magee forced him down upon the balcony floor, and tumbled on top of him. He felt the chill of the snow under his knees, and its wetness in his cuffs.

"Now," he cried to himself.

The other still struggled desperately. But his struggle was without success. For deftly Billy Magee drew from his pocket the precious package about which there had been so much debate on Baldpate Mountain. He clasped it close, rose and ran. In another second he was inside number seven, and had lighted a candle at the blazing logs.

Once more he examined that closely packed little bundle; once more he found it rich in greenbacks. Assuredly it was the greatly desired thing he had fought for the night before. He had it again. And this time, he told himself, he would not lose sight of it until he had placed it in the hands of the girl of the station.

The dark shadow of the man he had just robbed was hovering at his windows. Magee turned hastily to the door. As he did so it opened, and Hayden entered. He carried a pistol in his hand; his face was hard, cruel, determined; his usually expressionless eyes lighted with pleasure as they fell on the package in Mr. Magee's possession.

"It seems I'm just in time," he said, "to prevent highway robbery."

"You think so?" asked Magee.

"See here, young man," remarked Hayden, glancing nervously over his shoulder, "I can't waste any time in talk. Does that money belong to you? No. Well, it does belong to me. I'm going to have it. Don't think I'm afraid to shoot to get it. The law permits a man to fire on the thief who tries to fleece him."

"The law, did you say?" laughed Billy Magee. "I wouldn't drag the law into this if I were you, Mr. Hayden. I'm sure it has no connection with events on Baldpate Mountain. You would be the last to want its attention to be directed here. I've got this money, and I'm going to keep it."

Hayden considered a brief moment, and then swore under his breath.

"You're right," he said. "I'm not going to shoot. But there are other ways, you whipper-snapper—" He dropped the revolver into his pocket and sprang forward. For the second time within ten minutes Mr. Magee steadied himself for conflict.

But Hayden stopped. Some one had entered the room through the window behind Magee. In the dim light of the single candle Magee saw Hayden's face go white, his lip twitch, his eyes glaze with horrible surprise. His arms fell limply to his sides.

"Good God! Kendrick!" he cried.

The voice of the man with whom Billy Magee had but a moment before struggled on the balcony answered:

"Yes, Hayden. I'm back."

Hayden wet his lips with his tongue.

"What—what brought you?" he asked, his voice trailing off weakly on the last word.

"What brought me?" Suddenly, as from a volcano that had long been cold, fire blazed up in Kendrick's eyes. "If a man knew the road from hell back home, what would it need to bring him back?"

Hayden stood with his mouth partly open; almost a grotesque picture of terror he looked in that dim light. Then he spoke, in an odd strained tone, more to himself than to any one else.

"I thought you were dead," he said. "I told myself you'd never come back. Over and over—in the night—I told myself that. But all the time—I knew—I knew you'd come."

A cry—a woman's cry—sounded from just outside the door of number seven. Into the room came Myra Thornhill; quickly she crossed and took Kendrick's hands in hers.

"David," she sobbed. "Oh, David—is it a dream—a wonderful dream?"

Kendrick looked into her eyes, sheepishly at first, then gladly as he saw what was in them. For the light there, under the tears, was such as no man could mistake. Magee saw it. Hayden saw it too, and his voice was even more lifeless when he spoke.

"Forgive me, David," he said. "I didn't mean—"

And then, as he saw that Kendrick did not listen, he turned and walked quietly into the bedroom of number seven, taking no notice of Cargan and Bland, who, with the other winter guests of Baldpate, now crowded the doorway leading to the hall. Hayden closed the bedroom door. Mr. Magee and the others stood silent, wondering. Their answer came quickly—the sharp cry of a revolver behind that closed door.

It was Mr. Magee who went into the bedroom. The moonlight streamed in through the low windows, and fell brightly on the bed. Across this Hayden lay. Mr. Magee made sure. It was not a pleasant thing to make sure of. Then he took the revolver from the hand that still clasped it, covered the quiet figure on the bed, and stepped back into the outer room.

"He—he has killed himself," he said in a low voice, closing the bedroom door behind him.

There was a moment's frightened hush; then the voice of Kendrick rang out:

"Killed himself? I don't understand. Why should he do that? Surely not because—no—" He looked questioningly into the white face of the girl at his side; she only shook her head. "Killed himself," he repeated, like a man wakened from sleep. "I don't understand."

On tiptoe the amateur hermits of Baldpate descended to the hotel office. Mr. Magee saw the eyes of the girl of the station upon him, wide with doubt and alarm. While the others gathered in little groups and talked, he took her to one side.

"When does the next train leave for Reuton?" he asked her.

"In two hours—at ten-thirty," she replied.

"You must be on it," he told her. "With you will go the two-hundred-thousand-dollar package. I have it in my pocket now."

She took the news stolidly, and made no reply.

"Are you afraid?" asked Magee gently. "You mustn't be. No harm can touch you. I shall stay here and see that no one follows."

"I'm not afraid," she replied. "Just startled, that's all. Did he—did he do it because you took this money—because he was afraid of what would happen?"

"You mean Hayden?" Magee said. "No. This money was not concerned in—his death. That is an affair between Kendrick and him."

"I see," answered the girl slowly. "I'm so glad it wasn't—the money. I couldn't bear it if it were."

"May I call your attention," remarked Magee, "to the fact that the long reign of 'I'm going to' is ended, and the rule of 'I've done it' has begun? I've actually got the money. Somehow, it doesn't seem to thrill you the way I thought it would."

"But it does—oh, it does!" cried the girl. "I was upset—for a moment. It's glorious news And with you on guard here, I'm not afraid to carry it away—down the mountain—and to Reuton. I'll be with you in a moment, ready for the journey."

She called Mrs. Norton and the two went rather timidly up-stairs together. Mr. Magee turned to his companions in the room, and mentally called their roll. They were all there, the professor, the mayor, Max, Bland, Peters, Miss Thornhill, and the newcomer Kendrick, a man prematurely old, grayed at the temples, and with a face yellowed by fever. He and the professor were talking earnestly together, and now the old man came and stood before Magee.

"Mr. Magee," he said seriously, "I learn from Kendrick that you have in your possession a certain package of money that has been much buffeted about here at Baldpate Inn. Now I suggest—no, I demand—"

"Pardon me, Professor," Mr. Magee interrupted. "I have something to suggest—even to demand. It is that you, and every one else present, select a chair and sit down. I suggest, though I do not demand, that you pick comfortable chairs. For the vigil that you are about to begin will prove a long one."

"What d'you mean?" asked the mayor of Reuton, coming militantly to Professor Bolton's side.

Magee did not reply. Miss Norton and her mother came down the stair, the former wrapped in a great coat. She stood on the bottom step, her cheeks flushed, her eyes ablaze. Mr. Magee, going to her side, reflected that she looked charming and wonderful, and wished he had time to admire. But he hadn't. He took from one pocket the pistol he had removed from the hand of Hayden; from the other the celebrated package of money.

"I warn you all," he said, "I will shoot any one who makes a move for this bundle. Miss Norton is going to take it away with her—she is to catch the ten-thirty train for Reuton. The train arrives at its destination at twelve. Much as it pains me to say it, no one will leave this room before twelve-fifteen."

"You—crook!" roared Cargan.

Mr. Magee smiled as he put the package in the girl's hand.

"Possibly," he said. "But, Mr. Cargan, the blackness of the kettle always has annoyed the pot. Do not be afraid," he added to the girl. "Every gentleman in this room is to spend the evening with me. You will not be annoyed in any way." He looked around the menacing circle. "Go," he said, "and may the gods of the mountain take care of you."

The little professor of Comparative Literature stepped forward and stood pompously before Magee.

"One moment," he remarked. "Before you steal this money in front of our very eyes, I want to inform you who I am, and who I represent here."

"This is no time," replied Magee, "for light talk on the subject of blondes."

"This is the time," said the professor warmly, "for me to tell you that Mr. Kendrick here and myself represent at Baldpate Inn the prosecuting attorney of Reuton county. We—"

Cargan, big, red, volcanic, interrupted.

"Drayton," he bellowed. "Drayton sent you here? The rat! The pup! Why, I made that kid. I put him where he is. He won't dare touch me."

"Won't he?" returned Professor Bolton. "My dear sir, you are mistaken. Drayton fully intends to prosecute you on the ground that you arranged to pass Ordinance Number 45, granting the Suburban Railway the privilege of merging with the Civic, in exchange for this bribe of two hundred thousand dollars."

"He won't dare," cried Cargan. "I made him."

"Before election," said the professor, "I believe he often insisted to you that he would do his duty as he saw it."

"Of course he did," replied Cargan. "But that's what they all say."

"He intends to keep his word."

The mayor of Reuton slid into the shadows.

"To think he'd do this thing to me," he whined. "After all I've done for him."

"As I was saying, Mr. Magee," continued the professor, "Mr. Kendrick and I came up here to secure this package of money as evidence against Cargan and—the man above. I speak with the voice of the law when I say you must turn this money over to me."

For answer Magee smiled at the girl.

"You'd better go now," he said. "It's a long walk down the mountain."

"You refuse?" cried the professor.

"Absolutely—don't we, Miss Norton?" said Magee.

"Absolutely," she repeated bravely.

"Then, sir," announced the old man crushingly, "you are little better than a thief, and this girl is your accomplice."

"So it must look, on the face of it," assented Magee. The girl moved to the big front door, and Magee, with his eyes still on the room, backed away until he stood beside her. He handed her his key.

"I give you," he said, "to the gods of the mountain. But it's only a loan—I shall surely want you back. I can't follow ten feet behind, as I threatened—it will be ten hours instead. Good night, and good luck."

She turned the key in the lock.

"Billy Magee," she whispered, "yours is a faith beyond understanding. I shall tell the gods of the mountain that I am to be—returned. Good night, you—dear."

She went out quickly, and Magee, locking the door after her, thrust the key into his pocket. For a moment no one stirred. Then Mr. Max leaped up and ran through the flickering light to the nearest window.

There was a flash, a report, and Max came back into the firelight examining a torn trousers leg.

"I don't mean to kill anybody," explained Mr. Magee. "Just to wing them. But I'm not an expert—I might shoot higher than I intend. So I suggest that no one else try a break for it."

"Mr. Magee," said Miss Thornhill, "I don't believe you have the slightest idea who that girl is, nor what she wants with the money."

"That," he replied, "makes it all the more exciting, don't you think?"

"Do you mean—" the professor, exploded, "you don't know her? Well, you young fool."

"It's rather fine of you," remarked Miss Thornhill.

"It's asinine, if it's true," the professor voiced the other side of it.

"You have said yourself—or at least you claim to have said—" Mr. Magee reminded him, "one girl like that is worth a million suffragettes."

"And can make just as much trouble," complained Professor Bolton. "I shall certainly see to it that the hermit's book has an honored place in our college library."

Out of the big chair into which he had sunk came the wail of the uncomprehending Cargan:

"He's done this thing to me—after all I've done for him."

"I hope every one is quite comfortable," remarked Mr. Magee, selecting a seat facing the crowd. "It's to be a long wait, you know."

There was no answer. The wind roared lustily at the windows. The firelight flickered redly on the faces of Mr. Magee's prisoners.



CHAPTER XVII

THE PROFESSOR SUMS UP

In Upper Asquewan Falls the clock on the old town hall struck nine. Mr. Magee, on guard in Baldpate's dreary office, counted the strokes. She must be half-way down the mountain now—perhaps at this very moment she heard Quimby's ancient gate creaking in the wind. He could almost see her as she tramped along through the snow, the lovely heroine of the most romantic walk of all romantic walks on Baldpate to date. Half-way to the waiting-room where she had wept so bitterly; half-way to the curious station agent with the mop of ginger hair. To-night there would be no need of a troubadour to implore "Weep no more, my lady". William Hallowell Magee had removed the cause for tears.

It was a long vigil he had begun, but there was no boredom in it for Billy Magee. He was too great a lover of contrast for that. As he looked around on the ill-assorted group he guarded, he compared them with the happier people of the inn's summer nights, about whom the girl had told him. Instead of these surly or sad folk sitting glumly under the pistol of romantic youth he saw maids garbed in the magic of muslin flit through the shadows. Lights glowed softly; a waltz came up from the casino on the breath of the summer breeze. Under the red and white awnings youth and joy and love had their day—or their night. The hermit was on hand with his postal-carded romance. The trees gossiped in whispers on the mountain.

And, too, the rocking-chair fleet gossiped in whispers on the veranda, pausing only when the admiral sailed by in his glory. Eagerly it ran down its game. This girl—this Myra Thornhill—he remembered, had herself been a victim. After Kendrick disappeared she had come there no more, for there were ugly rumors of the man who had fled. Mr. Magee saw the girl and her long-absent lover whispering together in the firelight; he wondered if they, too, imagined themselves at Baldpate in the summer; if they heard the waltz in the casino, and the laughter of men in the grill-room.

Ten o'clock, said the town hall pompously. She was at the station now. In the room of her tears she was waiting; perhaps her only companion the jacky of the "See the World" poster, whose garb was but a shade bluer than her eyes. Who was she? What was the bribe money of the Suburban Railway to her? Mr. Magee did not know, but he trusted her, and he was glad she had won through him. He saw Professor Bolton walk through the flickering half-light to join Myra Thornhill and Kendrick.

It must be half past by now. Yes—from far below in the valley came the whistle of a train. Now—she was boarding it. She and the money. Boarding it—for where? For what purpose? Again the train whistled.

"The siege," remarked Mr. Magee, "is more than half over, ladies and gentlemen."

The professor of Comparative Literature approached him and took a chair at his side.

"I want to talk with you, Mr. Magee," he said.

"A welcome diversion," assented Magee, his eyes still on the room.

"I have discussed matters with Miss Thornhill," said the professor in a low voice. "She has convinced me that in this affair you have acted from a wholly disinterested point of view. A mistaken idea of chivalry, perhaps. The infatuation of the moment for a pretty face—a thing to which all men with red blood in their veins are susceptible—a pleasant thing that I would be the last to want banished from the world."

"Miss Thornhill," replied Billy Magee, "has sized up the situation perfectly—except for one rather important detail. It is not the infatuation of the moment, Professor. Say rather that of a lifetime."

"Ah, yes," the old man returned. "Youth—how sure it always is of that. I do not deprecate the feeling. Once, long ago, I, too, had youth and faith. We will not dwell on that, however. Miss Thornhill assures me that Henry Bentley, the son of my friend John Bentley, esteems you highly. She asserts that you are in every respect, as far as her knowledge goes, an admirable young man. I feel sure that after calm contemplation you will see that what you have done is very unfortunate. The package of money which in a giddy moment you have given into a young lady's keeping is much desired by the authorities as evidence against a very corrupt political ring. I am certain that when you know all the details you will be glad to return with me to Reuton and do all in your power to help us regain possession of that package."

And now the town hall informed Mr. Magee that the hour was eleven. He pictured a train flying like a black shadow through the white night. Was she on it—safe?

"Professor Bolton," he said, "there couldn't possibly be any one anywhere more eager than I to learn all the details of this affair—to hear your real reason for coming to Baldpate Inn, and to have the peroxide-blond incident properly classified and given its niche in history. But let me tell you again my action of to-night was no mere madness of the moment. I shall stick to it through thick and thin. Now, about the blondes."

"The blondes," repeated the professor dreamily. "Ah, yes, I must make a small confession of guilt there. I did not come here to escape the results of that indiscreet remark, but I really made it—about a year ago. Shall I ever forget? Hardly—the newspapers and my wife won't let me. I can never again win a new honor, however dignified, without being referred to in print as the peroxide-blond advocate. The thing has made me furious. However, I did not come to Baldpate Inn to avoid the results of a lying newspaper story, though many a time, a year ago, when I started to leave my house and saw the reporters camped on my door-step, I longed for the seclusion of some such spot as this. On the night when Mr. Kendrick and I climbed Baldpate Mountain, I remarked as much to him. And so it occurred to me that if I found any need of explaining my presence here, the blond incident would do very well. It was only—a white lie."

"A blond one," corrected Mr. Magee. "I forgive you, Professor. And I'm mighty glad the incident really happened, despite the pain it caused you. For it in a way condones my own offense—and it makes you human, too."

"If to err is human, it does," agreed Professor Bolton. "To begin with, I am a member of the faculty of the University of Reuton, situated, as you no doubt know, in the city of the same name. For a long time I have taken a quiet interest in our municipal politics. I have been up in arms—linguistic arms—against this odd character Cargan, who came from the slums to rule us with a rod of iron. Every one knows he is corrupt, that he is wealthy through the sale of privilege, that there is actually a fixed schedule of prices for favors in the way of city ordinances. I have often denounced him to my friends. Since I have met him—well, it is remarkable, is it not, the effect of personality on one's opinions? I expected to face a devil, with the usual appurtenances. Instead I have found a human, rather likable man. I can well understand now why it is that the mob follows him like sheep. However, that is neither here nor there. He is a crook, and must be punished—even though I do like him immensely."

Mr. Magee smiled over to where the great bulk of Cargan slouched in a chair.

"He's a bully old scout," he remarked.

"Even so," replied the professor, "his high-handed career of graft in Reuton must come to a speedy close. He is of a type fast vanishing through the awakening public conscience. And his career will end, I assure you, despite the fact that you, Mr. Magee, have seen fit to send our evidence scurrying through the night at the behest of a chit of a girl. I beg your pardon—I shall continue. Young Drayton, the new county prosecutor, was several years back a favorite pupil of mine. After he left law school he fell under the spell of the picturesque mayor of Reuton. Cargan liked him and he rose rapidly. Drayton had no thought of ever turning against his benefactor when he accepted the first favors, but later the open selling of men's souls began to disgust him. When Cargan offered him the place of prosecutor, a few months ago, Drayton assured him that he would keep his oath of office. The mayor laughed. Drayton insisted. Cargan had not yet met the man he could not handle. He gave Drayton the place."

The old man leaned forward, and tapped Magee on the knee.

"It was in me, remember," he went on, "that Drayton confided his resolve to serve the public. I was delighted at the news. A few weeks ago he informed me his first opportunity was at hand. Through one of the men in his office he had learned that Hayden of the Suburban Electric was seeking to consolidate that road, which had fallen into partial disrepute under his management during the illness of Thornhill, the president, with the Civic. The consolidation would raise the value of the Suburban nearly two million dollars—at the public's expense. Hayden had seen Cargan. Cargan had drafted Ordinance Number 45, and informed Hayden that his price for passing it through the council would be the sum you have juggled in your possession on Baldpate Mountain—two hundred thousand dollars."

"A mere trifle," remarked Magee sarcastically.

"So Cargan made Hayden see. Through long experience in these matters the mayor has become careless. He is the thing above the law, if not the law itself. He would have had no fear in accepting this money on Main Street at midday. He had no fear when he came here and found he was being spied on.

"But Hayden—there was the difficulty that began the drama of Baldpate Inn. Hayden had few scruples, but as events to-night have well proved, Mr. Magee, he was a coward at heart. I do not know just why he lies on your bed up-stairs at this moment, a suicide—that is a matter between Kendrick and him, and one which Kendrick himself has not yet fathomed. As I say, Hayden was afraid of being caught. Andy Rutter, manager of Baldpate Inn for the last few summers, is in some way mixed up in the Suburban. It was he who suggested to Hayden that an absolutely secluded spot for passing this large sum of money would be the inn. The idea appealed to Hayden. Cargan tried to laugh him out of it. The mayor did not relish the thought of a visit to Baldpate Mountain in the dead of winter, particularly as he considered such precautions unnecessary. But Hayden was firm; this spot, he pointed out, was ideal, and the mayor at last laughingly gave in. The sum involved was well worth taking a little trouble to gain."

Professor Bolton paused, and blinked his dim old eyes.

"So the matter was arranged," he continued. "Mr. Bland, a clerk in Hayden's employ, was sent up here with the money, which he placed in the safe on the very night of our arrival. The safe had been left open by Rutter; Bland did not have the combination. He put the package inside, swung shut the door, and awaited the arrival of the mayor."

"I was present," smiled Magee, "at the ceremony you mention."

"Yes? All these plans, as I have said, were known to Drayton. A few nights ago he came to me. He wanted to send an emissary to Baldpate—a man whom Cargan had never met—one who could perhaps keep up the pretense of being here for some other reason than a connection with the bribe. He asked me to undertake the mission, to see all I could, and if possible to secure the package of money. This last seemed hardly likely. At any rate, I was to gather all the evidence I could. I hesitated. My library fire never looked so alluring as on that night. Also, I was engaged in some very entertaining researches."

"I beg your pardon?" said Billy Magee.

"Some very entertaining research work."

"Yes," reflected Magee slowly, "I suppose such things do exist. Go on, please."

"I had loudly proclaimed my championship of civic virtue, however, and here was a chance to serve Reuton. I acquiesced. The day I was to start up here, poor Kendrick came back. He, too, had been a student of mine; a friend of both Drayton and Hayden. Seven years ago he and Hayden were running the Suburban together, under Thornhill's direction. The two young men became mixed up in a rather shady business deal, which was more of Hayden's weaving than Kendrick's. Hayden came to Kendrick with the story that they were about to be found out, and suggested that one assume the blame and go away. I am telling you all this in confidence as a friend of my friends, the Bentleys, and a young man whom I like and trust despite your momentary madness in the matter of yellow locks—we are all susceptible.

"Kendrick went. For seven years he stayed away, in an impossible tropic town, believing himself sought by the law, for so Hayden wrote him. Not long ago he discovered that the matter in which he and Hayden had offended had never been disclosed after all. He hurried back to the states. You can imagine his bitterness. He had been engaged to Myra Thornhill, and the fact that Hayden was also in love with her may have had something to do with his treachery to his friend."

Magee's eyes strayed to where the two victims of the dead man's falsehood whispered together in the shadows, and he wondered at the calmness with which Kendrick had greeted Hayden in the room above.

"When Kendrick arrived," Professor Bolton went on, "first of all he consulted his old friend Drayton. Drayton informed him that he had nothing to fear should his misstep be made public, for in reality there was, at this late day, no crime committed in the eyes of the law. He also told Kendrick how matters stood, and of the net he was spreading for Hayden. He had some fears, he said, about sending a man of my years alone to Baldpate Inn. Kendrick begged for the chance to come, too. So, without making his return known in Reuton, three nights ago he accompanied me here. Three nights—it seems years. I had secured keys for us both from John Bentley. As we climbed the mountain, I noticed your light, and we agreed it would be best if only one of us revealed ourselves to the intruders in the inn. So Kendrick let himself in by a side door while I engaged you and Bland in the office. He spent the night on the third floor. In the morning I told the whole affair to Quimby, knowing his interest in both Hayden and Kendrick, and secured for Kendrick the key to the annex. Almost as soon as I arrived—"

"The curtain went up on the melodrama," suggested Mr. Magee.

"You state it vividly and with truth," Professor Bolton replied. "Night before last the ordinance numbered 45 was due to pass the council. It was arranged that when it did, Hayden, through his man Rutter, or personally, would telephone the combination of the safe to the mayor of Reuton. Cargan and Bland sat in the office watching for the flash of light at the telephone switchboard, while you and I were Max's prisoners above. Something went wrong. Hayden heard that the courts would issue an injunction making Ordinance Number 45 worthless. So, although the council obeyed Cargan's instructions and passed the bill, Hayden refused to give the mayor the combination."

The old man paused and shook his head wonderingly.

"Then melodrama began in dead earnest," he continued. "I have always been a man of peace, and the wild scuffle that claimed me for one of its leading actors from that moment will remain in my memory as long as I live. Cargan dynamited the safe. Kendrick held him up; you held up Kendrick. I peeked through your window and saw you place the package of money under a brick in your fireplace—"

"You—the curtains were down," interrupted Magee.

"I found a half-inch of open space," explained the old man. "Yes, I actually lay on my stomach in the snow and watched you. In the morning, for the first time in my life, I committed robbery. My punishment was swift and sure. Bland swooped down upon me. Again this afternoon, I came upon the precious package, after a long search, in the hands of the Hermit of Baldpate. I thought we were safe at last when I handed the package to Kendrick in my room to-night—but I had not counted on the wild things a youth like you will do for love of a designing maid."

Twelve o'clock! The civic center of Upper Asquewan Falls proclaimed it. Mr. Magee had never been in Reuton. He was sorry he hadn't. He had to construct from imagination alone the great Reuton station through which the girl and the money must now be hurrying—where? The question would not down. Was she—as the professor believed—designing?

"No," said Mr. Magee, answering aloud his own question. "You are wrong, sir. I do not know just what the motives of Miss Norton were in desiring this money, but I will stake my reputation as an honest hold-up man that they were perfectly all right."

"Perhaps," replied the other, quite unconvinced. "But—what honest motive could she have? I am able to assign her no role in this little drama. I have tried. I am able to see no connection between her and the other characters. What—"

"Pardon me," broke in Magee. "But would you mind telling me why Miss Thornhill came up to Baldpate to join in the chase for the package?"

"Her motive," replied the professor, "does her great credit. For several years her father, Henry Thornhill, has been forced through illness to leave the management of the railway's affairs to his vice-president, Hayden. Late yesterday the old man heard of this proposed bribe—on his sick bed. He was very nearly insane at the thought of the disgrace it would bring upon him. He tried to rise himself and prevent the passing of the package. His daughter—a brave loyal girl—herself undertook the task."

"Then," said Mr. Magee, "Miss Thornhill is not distressed at the loss of the most important evidence in the case."

"I have explained the matter to her," returned Professor Bolton. "There is no chance whatever that her father's name will be implicated. Both Drayton and myself have the highest regard for his integrity. The whole affair was arranged when he was too ill to dream of it. His good name will be smirched in no way. The only man involved on the giver's side is dead in the room above. The man we are after now is Cargan. Miss Thornhill has agreed that it is best to prosecute. That eliminates her."

"Did Miss Thornhill and Kendrick meet for the first time, after his exile, up-stairs—in number seven?" Mr. Magee wanted to know.

"Yes," answered Professor Bolton. "In one of his letters long ago Hayden told Kendrick he was engaged to the girl. It was the last letter Kendrick received from him."

There was a pause.

"The important point now," the old man went on, "is the identity of this girl to whom you have made your princely gift, out of the goodness of your young heart. I propose to speak to the woman she has introduced as her mother, and elicit what information I can."

He crossed the floor, followed by Mr. Magee, and stood by the woman's chair. She looked up, her eyes heavy with sleep, her appearance more tawdry than ever in that faint light.

"Madam," remarked the professor, with the air of a judge trying a case, "your daughter has to-night made her escape from this place with a large sum of money earnestly desired by the prosecuting attorney of Reuton county. In the name of the law, I command you to tell me her destination, and what she proposes to do with that package of greenbacks."

The woman blinked stupidly in the dusk.

"She ain't my daughter," she replied, and Mr. Magee's heart leaped up. "I can tell you that much. I keep a boarding-house in Reuton and Miss—the girl you speak about—has been my boarder for three years. She brought me up here as a sort of chaperon, though I don't see as I'm old enough for that yet. You don't get nothing else out of me—except that she is a perfectly lovely young woman, and your money couldn't be safer with the president of the United States."

The puzzled professor of Comparative Literature caressed his bald head thoughtfully. "I—er—" he remarked. Mr. Magee could have embraced this faded woman for her news. He looked at his watch. It was twelve-twenty.

"The siege is over," he cried. "I shall not attempt to direct your actions any longer. Mr. Peters, will you please go down to the village and bring back Mr. Quimby and—the coroner?"

"The coroner!" The mayor of Reuton jumped to his feet. "I don't want to be in on any inquest scene. Come on, Max, let's get out of here."

Bland stood up, his face was white and worried, his gay plumage no longer set the tone for his mood.

"I think I'll go, too," he announced, looking hopefully at Magee.

"I'm no longer your jailer," Magee said. "Professor, these gentlemen are your witnesses Do you wish to detain them?"

"See here," cried the mayor angrily, "there ain't no question but that you can find me in Reuton any time you want me. At the little room on Main Street—anybody can tell you my hours—the door's always open to any reformer that has the nerve to climb the stairs. Look me up there. I'll make it interesting for you."

"I certainly shall," the professor replied. "And very soon. Until then you may go when and where you please."

"Thanks," sneered the mayor. "I'll expect you. I'll be ready. I've had to get ready to answer your kind before. You think you got me, eh? Well, you're a fool to think that. As for Drayton, the pup, the yellow-streaked pup—I'll talk to Mister Drayton when I get back to Reuton."

"Before you go, Bland," remarked Magee, smiling, "I want to ask about Arabella. Where did you get her?"

"Some of it happened to a friend of mine," the ex-haberdasher answered, "a friend that keeps a clothing store. I got this suit there. I changed the story, here and there. He didn't write her no note, though he thought seriously of it. And he didn't run away and hide. The last I seen of him he was testing the effect of the heart-balm on sale behind the swinging doors."

Mr. Magee laughed, but over the long lean face of Bland not the ghost of a smile flitted. He was frightened, through and through.

"You're a fine bunch," sneered Mr. Max. "Reformers, eh? Well, you'll get what the rest of 'em always got. We'll tie you up in knots and leave you on the door-step of some orphan asylum before we're through with you."

"Come on, Lou," said Cargan. "Drayton's a smart guy, Doc. Where's his proof? Eloped with the bundle of dry goods this young man's taken a fancy to. And even if he had the money—I've been up against this many a time. You're wasting your talents, Doc. Good night! Come on, boys."

The three stamped out through the dining-room, and from the window Mr. Magee watched them disappear down the road that stretched to Asquewan Falls.



CHAPTER XVIII

A RED CARD

Mr. Magee turned back from the window to the dim interior of the hotel office. He who had come to Baldpate Inn to court loneliness had never felt so lonely in his life. For he had lost sight of her—in the great Reuton station of his imagination she had slipped from his dreams—to go where he could not follow, even in thought. He felt as he knew this great bare room must feel each fall when the last laugh died away down the mountain, and the gloom of winter descended from drab skies.

Selecting a log of the hermit's cutting from the stock beside the hearth, Mr. Magee tossed it on the fire. There followed a shower of sparks and a flood of red light in the room. Through this light Kendrick advanced to Magee's side, and the first of the Baldpate hermits saw that the man's face was lined by care, that his eyes were tired even under the new light in them, that his mouth was twisted bitterly.

"Poor devil," thought Magee.

Kendrick drew up chairs for himself and Magee, and they sat down. Behind them the bulky Mrs. Norton dozed, dreaming perhaps of her Reuton boarding-house, while Miss Thornhill and the professor talked intermittently in low tones. The ranks at Baldpate were thinning rapidly; before long the place must settle back with a sigh in the cold, to wait for its first summer girl.

"Mr. Magee," said Kendrick nervously, "you have become involved in an unkind, a tragic story. I do not mean the affair of the bribe—I refer to the matter between Hayden and myself. Before Peters comes back with—the men he went for—I should like to tell you some of the facts of that story."

"If you had rather not—" began Magee.

"No," replied Kendrick, "I prefer that you should know. It was you who took the pistol from—his hand. I do not believe that even I can tell you all that was in Hayden's mind when he went into that other room and closed the door. It seems to me preposterous that a man of his sort should take his life under the circumstances I feel, somehow, that there is a part of the story even I do not know. But let that be."

He bowed his head in his hands.

"Ever since I came into this room," he went on, "the eyes of a pompous little man have been following me about. They have constantly recalled to me the nightmare of my life. You have noticed, no doubt, the pictures of the admiral that decorate these walls?"

"I have," replied Magee. He gazed curiously at the nearest of the portraits. How persistently this almost mythical starched man wove in and out of the melodrama at Baldpate Inn.

"Well," continued Kendrick, "the admiral's eyes haunt me. Perhaps you know that he plays a game—a game of solitaire. I have good reason to remember that game. It is a silly inconsequential game. You would scarcely believe that it once sent a man to hell."

He stopped.

"I am beginning in the middle of my story," he apologized. "Let me go back. Six years ago I was hardly the man you see now—I was at least twenty years younger. Hayden and I worked together in the office of the Suburban Railway. We had been close friends at college—I believed in him and trusted him, although I knew he had certain weaknesses. I was a happy man. I had risen rapidly, I was young, the future was lying golden before me—and I was engaged. The daughter of Henry Thornhill, our employer—the girl you have met here at Baldpate—had promised to be my wife. Hayden had also been a suitor, but when our engagement was announced he came to me like a man, and I thought his words were sincere.

"One day Hayden told me of a chance we might take which would make us rich. It was not—altogether within the law. But it was the sort of thing that other men were doing constantly, and Hayden assured me that as he had arranged matters it was absolutely safe. My great sin is that I agreed we should take the chance—a sin for which I have paid, Mr. Magee, over and over."

Again he paused, and gazed steadily at the fire. Again Magee noted the gray at his temples, the aftermath of fevers in his cheeks.

"We—took the chance," he went on. "For a time everything went well. Then—one blustering March night—Hayden came to me and told me we were certain to be caught. Some of his plans had gone awry. I trusted him fully at the time, you understand—he was the man with whom I had sat on the window-seat of my room at college, settling the question of immortality, and all the other great questions young men settle at such times. I have at this moment no doubt that he was quite truthful when he said we were in danger of arrest. We arranged to meet the next night at the Argots Club and decide on what we should do.

"We met—in the library of the club. Hayden came in to me from the card-room adjoining, where he had been watching the admiral doddering over his eternal game. The old man had become a fixture at the club, like Parker down at the door, or the great chandelier in the hall. No one paid any attention to him; when he tried to talk to the younger men about his game they fled as from a pestilence. Well, as I say, Hayden came to meet me, and just at that moment the admiral finished his game and went out. We were alone in the library.

"Hayden told me he had thought the matter over carefully. There was nothing to do but to clear out of Reuton forever. But why, he argued, should we both go? Why wreck two lives? It would be far better, he told me, for one to assume the guilt of both and go away. I can see him now—how funny and white his face looked in that half-lighted room—how his hands trembled. I was far the calmer of the two.

"I agreed to his plan. Hayden led the way into the room where the admiral had been playing. We went up to the table, over which the green-shaded light still burned. On it lay two decks of cards, face up. Hayden picked up the nearest deck, and shuffled it nervously. His face—God, it was like the snow out there on the mountain."

Kendrick closed his eyes, and Magee gazed at him in silent pity.

"He held out the deck," went on the exile softly, "he told me to draw. He said if the card was black, he'd clear out. 'But if it's red, David,' he said, 'why—you—got to go.' I held my breath, and drew. It was a full minute before I dared look at the card in my hand. Then I turned it over and it was—red—a measly little red two-spot. I don't suppose a man ever realizes all at once what such a moment means. I remember that I was much cooler than Hayden. It was I who had to brace him up. I—I even tried to joke with him. But his face was like death. He hardly spoke at all at first, and then suddenly he became horribly talkative. I left him—talking wildly—I left Reuton. I left the girl to whom I was engaged."

To break the silence that followed, Mr. Magee leaned forward and stirred the logs.

"I don't want to bore you," Kendrick said, trying to smile. "I went to a little town in South America. There was no treaty of extradition there—nor anything else civilized and decent. I smoked cigarettes and drank what passed for rum, on the balcony of an impossible hotel, and otherwise groped about for the path that leads to the devil. After a year, I wrote to Hayden. He answered, urging me to stay away. He intimated that the thing we had done was on my shoulders. I was ashamed, frightfully unhappy. I didn't dare write to—her. I had disgraced her. I asked Hayden about her, and he wrote back that she was shortly to marry him. After that I didn't want to come back to Reuton. I wanted most—to die.

"The years crept by on the balcony of that impossible hotel. Six of them. The first in bitter memories, memories of a red card that danced fiendishly before my eyes when I closed them—the last in a fierce biting desire to come back to the world I had left. At last, a few months ago, I wrote to another college friend of mine, Drayton, and told him the whole story. I did not know that he had been elected prosecutor in Reuton. He answered with a kind pitying letter—and finally I knew the horrible truth. Nothing had ever happened. The thing we had done had never been discovered. Hayden had lied. He had even lied about his engagement to Myra Thornhill. There, he had made a reality out of what was simply his great desire.

"You can imagine my feelings. Six years in a tomb, a comic opera sort of tomb, where a silly surf was forever pounding, and foolish palms kept waving. Six years—for nothing. Six years, while Hayden, guiltier than I, stayed behind to enjoy the good things of life, to plead for the girl whose lover he had banished.

"I lost no time in coming north. Three days ago I entered Drayton's office. I was ready and willing that the wrong Hayden and I had done should be made public. Drayton informed me that legally there had been no crime, that Hayden had straightened things out in time, that we had defrauded no one. And he told me that for whatever sin I had committed he thought I had more than atoned down there in that town that God forgot. I think I had. He explained to me about the trap he had laid for Hayden up here at Baldpate Inn. I begged to help. What happened after, you know as well as I."

"Yes, I think I do," agreed Mr. Magee softly.

"I have told you the whole story," Kendrick replied, "and yet it seems to me that still it is not all told. Why should Hayden have killed himself? He had lied to me, it is true, but life was always sweet to him, and it hardly seems to me that he was the sort to die simply because his falsehood was discovered. Was there some other act of cruelty—some side to the story of which we are none of us aware? I wonder."

He was silent a moment.

"Anyhow, I have told you all I know," he said. "Shall I tell it also to the coroner? Or shall we allow Hayden's suicide to pass as the result of his implication in this attempt at bribery? I ask your advice, Mr. Magee."

"My advice," returned Magee, "is that you befuddle no pompous little village doctor with the complication of this unhappy tale. No, let the story be that Hayden killed himself as the toils closed in on him—the toils of the law that punishes the bribe giver—now and then and occasionally. Mr. Kendrick, you have my deepest sympathy. Is it too much for me to hope"—he glanced across the room to where Myra Thornhill sat beside the professor—"that the best of your life is yet to come—that out of the wreck this man made of it you may yet be happy?"

Kendrick smiled.

"You are very kind," he said. "Twice we have met and battled in the snow, and I do not hold it against you that both times you were the victor. Life in a tropic town, Mr. Magee, is not exactly a muscle-building experience. Once I might have given the whole proceeding a different turn. Yes, Miss Thornhill has waited for me—all these years—waited, believing. It is a loyalty of which I can not speak without—you understand. She knows why I went away—why I stayed away. She is still ready to marry me. I shall go again into the Suburban office and try to lift the road from the muck into which it has fallen. Yes, it is not too much for me to hope—and for you in your kindness—that a great happiness is still for me."

"Believe me, I'm glad," replied Magee with youthful enthusiasm, holding out his hand. "I'm sorry I spoiled your little game up here, but—"

"I understand," smiled Kendrick. "I think none the less of you for what you have done. And who knows? It may turn out to have been the wisest course after all."

Ah, would it? Mr. Magee walked to the window, pondering on the odd tangle of events that had not yet been completely straightened out. Certainly her eyes were an honest blue as well as a beautiful—but who was she? Where was she? The great figure of Mrs. Norton stirred restlessly near at hand; the puffed lids of her eyes opened.

"Mr. Magee," she said, when she had made out his figure by the window, "you've been a true friend, as I might say, to a couple of mad females who ought to have been at home by their own firesides, and I'm going to ask one more favor of you. Find out when the next train goes to Reuton, and see that I'm at the station an hour or two before it pulls out."

"I'll do that, Mrs. Norton," smiled Magee. "By the way, is Norton the name?"

"Yes," answered the woman, "that's my name. Of course, it ain't hers. I can't tell that."

"No matter," said Mr. Magee, "she'll probably change it soon. Can't you tell me something about her—just a tiny bit of information. Just a picture of where she is now, and what she's doing with that small fortune I gave her."

"Where is she now?" repeated Mrs. Norton. "She's home and in bed in my second floor front, unless she's gone clear crazy. And that's where I wish I was this minute—in bed—though it's a question in my mind if I'll ever be able to sleep again, what with the uproar and confusion my house is probably in by this time, leaving it in charge of a scatter-brained girl. Norton always used to say if you want a thing done right, do it yourself, and though he didn't always live up to the sentiment, letting me do most things he wanted done right, there was a lot of truth in his words. I certainly must get back to Reuton, just as quick as the railroad will take me."

"Why did you come?" prodded Mr. Magee. "Why did you leave your house on this strange mission?"

"The Lord knows," replied the woman. "I certainly never intended to, but she begged and pleaded, and the first thing I knew, I was on a train. She has winning ways, that girl—maybe you've noticed?"

"I have," assented Billy Magee.

"I thought so. No, Mr. Magee, I can't tell you nothing about her. I ain't allowed to—even you that has been so kind. She made me promise. 'He'll know soon enough,' she kept saying. But I will tell you, as I told you before, there's no occasion to worry about her—unless you was to think was she held up and murdered with all that money on her, the brave little dear. If you was considering offering yourself for the job of changing her name, Mr. Magee, I say go in and do it. It sure is time she settled down and gave up this—this—gave it all up before something awful happens to her. You won't forget—the very next train, Mr. Magee?"

"The very next," Magee agreed.

In through the dining-room door stamped Quimby, grave of face, dazed at being roused from sleep, and with him an important little man whose duty it was to investigate at Upper Asquewan Falls such things as had happened that night at Baldpate. Even from his slumber he rose with the air of a judge and the manner of a Sherlock Holmes. For an hour he asked questions, and in the end he prepared to go in a seemingly satisfied state of mind.

Quimby's face was very awed when he came down-stairs after a visit to the room above.

"Poor fellow!" he said to Magee. "I'm sorry—he was so young." For such as Quimby carry no feud beyond the gates. He went over and took Kendrick's hand.

"I never had a chance," he said, "to thank you for all you tried to do for me and my invention."

"And it came to nothing in the end?" Kendrick asked.

"Nothing," Quimby answered. "I—I had to creep back to Baldpate Mountain finally—broke and discouraged. I have been here ever since. All my blue prints, all my models—they're locked away forever in a chest up in the attic."

"Not forever, Quimby," Kendrick replied. "I always did believe in your invention—I believe in it still. When I get back into the harness—I'm sure I can do something for you."

Quimby shook his head. He looked to be half asleep.

"It don't seem possible," he said. "No—it's all been buried so long—all the hope—all the plans—it don't seem possible it could ever come to life again."

"But it can, and it will," cried Kendrick. "I'm going to lay a stretch of track in Reuton with your joints. That's all you need—they'll have to use 'em then. We'll force the Civic into it. We can do it, Quimby—we surely can."

Quimby rubbed his hand across his eyes.

"You'll lay a stretch of track—" he repeated. "That's great news to me, Mr. Kendrick. I—I can't thank you now." His voice was husky. "I'll come back and take care of—him," he said, jerking his head toward the room up-stairs. "I got to go now—this minute—I got to go and tell my wife. I got to tell her what you've said."



CHAPTER XIX

EXEUNT OMNES, AS SHAKESPEARE HAS IT

At four in the morning Baldpate Inn, wrapped in the arms pf winter, had all the rare gaiety and charm of a baseball bleechers on Christmas Eve. Looking gloomily out the window, Mr. Magee heard behind him the steps on the stairs and the low cautions of Quimby, and two men he had brought from the village, who were carrying something down to the dark carriage that waited outside. He did not look round. It was a picture he wished to avoid.

So this was the end—the end of his two and a half days of solitude—the end of his light-hearted exile on Baldpate Mountain. He thought of Bland, lean and white of face, gay of garb, fleeing through the night, his Arabella fiction disowned in the real tragedy that had followed. He thought of Cargan and Max, also fleeing, wrathful, sneering, by Bland's side. He thought of Hayden, jolting down the mountain in that black wagon. So it ended.

So it ended—most preposterous end—with William Hallowell Magee madly, desperately, in love. By the gods—in love! In love with a fair gay-hearted girl for whom he had fought, and stolen, and snapped his fingers at the law as it blinked at him in the person of Professor Bolton. Billy Magee, the calm, the unsusceptible, who wrote of a popular cupid but had always steered clear of his shots. In love with a girl whose name he did not know; whose motives were mostly in the fog. And he had come up here—to be alone.

For the first time in many hours he thought of New York, of the fellows at the club, of what they would say when the jocund news came that Billy Magee had gone mad on a mountainside, He thought of Helen Faulkner, haughty, unperturbed, bred to hold herself above the swift catastrophies of the world. He could see the arch of her patrician eyebrows, the shrug of her exquisite shoulders, when young Williams hastened up the avenue and poured into her ear the merry story. Well—so be it He had never cared for her. In her superiority he had found a challenge, in her icy indifference a trap, that lured him on to try his hand at winning her. But he had never for a moment caught a glimmering of what it was really to care—to care as he cared now for the girl who had gone from him—somewhere—down the mountain.

Quimby dragged into the room, the strain of a rather wild night in Upper Asquewan Falls in his eyes.

"Jake Peters asked me to tell you he ain't coming back," he said. "Mis' Quimby is getting breakfast for you down at our house. You better pack up now and start down, I reckon. Your train goes at half past six."

Mrs. Norton jumped up, proclaiming that she must be aboard that train at any cost. Miss Thornhill, the professor and Kendrick ascended the stairs, and in a moment Magee followed.

He stepped softly into number seven, for the tragedy of the rooms was still in the air. Vague shapes seemed to flit about him as he lighted a candle. They whispered in his ear that this was to have been the scene of achievement; that here he was to have written the book that should make his place secure. Ah, well, fate had decreed it otherwise. It had set plump in his path the melodrama he had come up to Baldpate to avoid. Ironic fate, she must be laughing now in the sleeve of her kimono. Feeling about in the shadows Magee gathered his things together, put them in his bags, and with a last look at number seven, closed the door forever on its many excitements.

A shivering group awaited him at the foot of the stair. Mrs. Norton's hat was on at an angle even the most imaginative milliner could not have approved. The professor looked older than ever; even Miss Thornhill seemed a little less statuesque and handsome in the dusk. Quimby led the way to the door, they passed through it, and Mr. Magee locked it after them with the key Hal Bentley had blithely given him on Forty-fourth Street, New York.

So Baldpate Inn dropped back into the silence to slumber and to wait. To wait for the magic of muslin, the lilt of waltzes, the tinkle of laughter, the rhythm of the rockers of the fleet on its verandas, the formal tread of the admiral's boots across its polished floors, the clink of dimes in the pockets of its bell-boys. For a few brief hours strange figures had replaced the unromantic Quimby in its rooms, they had come to talk of money and of love, to plot and scheme, and as they came in the dark and moved most swiftly in the dark, so in the dark they went away, and Baldpate's startling winter drama took reluctantly its final curtain.

Down the snowy road the five followed Quimby's lead; Mr. Magee picturing in fancy one who had fled along this path but a short time before; the others busy with many thoughts, not the least of which was of Mrs. Quimby's breakfast. At the door of the kitchen she met them, maternal, concerned, eager to pamper and to serve, just as Mr. Magee remembered her on that night that now seemed so long ago. He smiled down into her eyes, and he had an engaging smile, even at four-thirty in the morning.

"Well, Mrs. Quimby," he cried, "here is the prodigal straight from that old husk of an inn. And believe me, he's pretty anxious to sit down to some food that woman, starter of all the trouble since the world began, had a hand in."

"Come right in, all of you," chirruped Mrs. Quimby, ushering them into a pleasant odor of cookery. "Take off your things and sit down. Breakfast's most ready. My land, I guess you must be pretty nigh starved to death. Quimby told me who was cooking for you, and I says to Quimby: 'What,' I says, 'that no account woman-hater messing round at a woman's job, like that,' I says. 'Heaven pity the people at the inn,' I says. 'Mr. Peters may be able to amuse them with stories of how Cleopatra whiled away the quiet Egyptian evenings,' I says, 'and he may be able to throw a little new light on Helen of Troy, who would object to having it thrown if she was alive and the lady I think her, but,' I says, 'when it comes to cooking, I guess he stands about where you do, Quimby.' You see, Quimby's repertory consists of coffee and soup, and sometimes it's hard to tell which he means for which."

"So Mr. Peters has taken you in on the secret of the book he is writing against your sex?" remarked Billy Magee.

"Not exactly that," Mrs. Quimby answered, brushing back a wisp of gray hair, "but he's discussed it in my presence, ignoring me at the time. You see, he comes down here and reads his latest chapters to Quimby o' nights, and I've caught quite a lot of it on my way between the cook-stove and the sink."

"I ain't no judge of books," remarked Mrs. Norton from a comfortable rocking-chair, "but I'll bet that one's the limit."

"You're right, ma'am," Mrs. Quimby told her. "I ain't saying that some of it ain't real pretty worded, but that's just to hide the falsehood underneath. My land, the lies there is in that book! You don't need to know much about history to know that Jake Peters has made it over to fit his argument, and that he ain't made it over so well but what the old seams show here and there, and the place where the braid was is plain as daylight."

After ten more minutes of bustle, Mrs. Quimby announced that they could sit down, and they were not slow to accept the invitation. The breakfast she served them moved Mr. Magee to remark:

"I want to know where I stand as a judge of character. On the first night I saw Mrs. Quimby, without tasting a morsel of food cooked by her, I said she was the best cook in the county."

The professor looked up from his griddle cakes.

"Why limit it to the county?" he asked. "I should say you were too parsimonious in your judgment."

Mrs. Quimby, detecting in the old man's words a compliment, flushed an even deeper red as she bent above the stove. Under the benign influence of the food and the woman's cheery personality, the spirits of the crowd rose. Baldpate Inn was in the past, its doors locked, its seven keys scattered through the dawn. Mrs. Quimby, as she continued to press food upon them, spoke with interest of the events that had come to pass at the inn.

"It's so seldom anything really happens around here," she said, "I just been hungering for news of the strange goings-on up there. And I must say Quimby ain't been none too newsy on the subject. I threatened to come up and join in the proceedings myself, especially when I heard about the book-writing cook Providence had sent you."

"You would have found us on the porch with outstretched arms," Mr. Magee assured her.

It was on Kendrick that Mrs. Quimby showered her attentions, and when the group rose to seek the station, amid a consultation of watches that recalled the commuter who rises at dawn to play tag with a flippant train, Mr. Magee heard her say to the railroad man in a heartfelt aside:

"I don't know as I can ever thank you enough, Mr. Kendrick, for putting new hope into Quimby. You'll never understand what it means, when you've given up, and your life seems all done and wasted, to hear that there's a chance left."

"Won't I?" replied Kendrick warmly. "Mrs. Quimby, it will make me a very happy man to give your husband his chance."

The first streaks of dawn were in the sky when the hermits of Baldpate filed through the gate into the road, waving good-by to Quimby and his wife, who stood in their dooryard for the farewell. Down through sleepy little Asquewan Falls they paraded, meeting here and there a tired man with a lunch basket in his hand, who stepped to one side and frankly stared while the odd procession passed.

In the station Mr. Magee encountered an old friend—he of the mop of ginger-colored hair. The man who had complained of the slowness of the village gazed with wide eyes at Magee.

"I figured," he said, "that you'd come this way again. Well, I must say you've put a little life into this place. If I'd known when I saw you here the other night all the exciting things you had up your sleeve, I'd a-gone right up to Baldpate with you."

"But I hadn't anything up my sleeve," protested Magee.

"Maybe," replied the agent, winking. "There's some pretty giddy stories going round about the carryings-on up at Baldpate. Shots fired, and strange lights flashing—dog-gone it, the only thing that's happened here in years, and I wasn't in on it. I certainly wish you'd put me wise to it."

"By the way," inquired Magee, "did you notice the passengers from here on the ten-thirty train last night?"

"Ten-thirty," repeated the agent. "Say, what sort of hours do you think I keep? A man has to get some sleep, even if he does work for a railroad. I wasn't here at ten-thirty last night. Young Cal Hunt was on duty then. He's home and in bed now."

No help there. Into the night the girl and the two hundred thousand had fled together, and Mr. Magee could only wait, and wonder, as to the meaning of that flight.

Two drooping figures entered the station—the mayor and his faithful lieutenant, Max. The dignity of the former had faded like a flower, and the same withered simile might have been applied with equal force to the accustomed jauntiness of Lou.

"Good morning," said Mr. Magee in greeting. "Taking an early train, too, eh? Have a pleasant night?"

"Young man," replied Cargan, "if you've ever put up at a hotel in a town the size of this, called the Commercial House, you know that last question has just one answer—manslaughter. I heard a minister say once that all drummers are bound for hell. If they are, it'll be a pleasant change for 'em."

Mr. Max delved beneath his overcoat, and brought forth the materials for a cigarette, which he rolled between yellow fingers.

"If I was a drummer," he said dolefully, "one breakfast—was that what they called it, Jim?—one breakfast like we just passed through would drive me into the awful habit of reading one of these here books of Drummers' Yarns."

"Sorry," smiled Magee. "We had an excellent breakfast at Mrs. Quimby's. Really, you should have stayed. By the way, where is Bland?"

"Got shaky in the knees," said Cargan. "Afraid of the reformers. Ain't had much experience in these things, or he'd know he might just as well tremble at the approach of a blue-bottle fly. We put him on a train going the other direction from Reuton early this morning. He thinks he'd better seek his fortune elsewhere." He leaned in heavy confidence toward Magee. "Say, young fellow," he whispered, "put me wise. That little sleight of hand game you worked last night had me dizzy. Where's the coin? Where's the girl? What's the game? Take the boodle and welcome—it ain't mine—but put me next to what's doing, so I'll know how my instalment of this serial story ought to read."

"Mr. Cargan," replied Magee, "you know as much about that girl as I do. She asked me to get her the money, and I did."

"But what's your place in the game?"

"A looker-on in Athens," returned Magee. "Translated, a guy who had bumped into a cyclone and was sitting tight waiting for it to blow over. I—I took a fancy to her, as you might put it. She wanted the money. I got it for her."

"A pretty fairy story, my boy," the mayor commented.

"Absolutely true," smiled Magee.

"What do you think of that for an explanation, Lou," inquired Cargan, "she asked him for the money and he gave it to her?"

Mr. Max leered.

"Say, a Broadway chorus would be pleased to meet you, Magee," he commented.

"Don't tell any of your chorus friends about me," replied Magee. "I might not always prove so complacent. Every man has his moments of falling for romance. Even you probably fell once—and what a fall was there."

"Can the romance stuff," pleaded Max. "This chilly railway station wasn't meant for such giddy language."

Wasn't it? Mr. Magee looked around at the dingy walls, at the soiled time-cards, at the disreputable stove. No place for romance? It was here he had seen her first, in the dusk, weeping bitterly over the seemingly hopeless task in which he was destined to serve her. No place for romance—and here had begun his life's romance. The blue blithe sailor still stood at attention in the "See the World" poster. Magee winked at him. He knew about it all, he knew, he knew—he knew how alluring she had looked in the blue corduroy suit, the bit of cambric pressed agonizingly to her face. Verily, even the sailor of the posters saw the world and all its glories.

The agent leaned his face against the bars.

"Your train," he called, "is crossing the Main Street trestle."

They filed out upon the platform, Mr. Magee carrying Mrs. Norton's luggage amid her effusive thanks. On the platform waited a stranger equipped for travel. It was Mr. Max who made the great discovery.

"By the Lord Harry," he cried, "it's the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain."

And so it was, his beard gone, his hair clumsily hacked, his body garbed in the height of an old and ludicrous fashion, his face set bravely toward the cities once more.

"Yes," he said, "I walked the floor, thinking it all over. I knew it would happen, and it has. The winters are hard, and the sight of you—it was too much. The excitement, the talk—it did for me, did for my oath. So I'm going back to her—back to Brooklyn for Christmas."

"A merry one to you," growled Cargan.

"Maybe," replied Mr. Peters. "Very likely, if she's feeling that way. I hope so. I ain't giving up the hermit job altogether—I'll come back in the summers, to my post-card business. There's money in it, if it's handled right. But I've spent my last winter on that lonesome hill."

"As author to author," asked Magee, "how about your book?"

"There won't be any mention of that," the hermit predicted, "in Brooklyn. I've packed it away. Maybe I can work on it summers, if she doesn't come up here with me and insist on running my hermit business for me. I hope she won't, it would sort of put a crimp in it—but if she wants to I won't refuse. And maybe that book'll never get done. Sometimes as I've sat in my shack at night and read, it's come to me that all the greatest works since the world began have been those that never got finished."

The Reuton train roared up to them through the gray morning, and paused impatiently at Upper Asquewan Falls. Aboard it clambered the hermits, amateur and professional. Mr. Magee, from the platform, waved good-by to the agent standing forlorn in the station door. He watched the building until it was only a blur in the dawn. A kindly feeling for it was in his heart. After all, it had been in the waiting-room—



CHAPTER XX

THE ADMIRAL'S GAME

The village of Upper Asquewan Falls gave a correct imitation of snow upon the desert's dusty face, and was no more. Bidding a reluctant good-by to up-state romance, Mr. Magee entered the solitary day coach which, with a smoker, made up the local to Reuton. He spent a few moments adjusting Mrs. Norton to her new environment, and listened to her voluble expressions of joy in the fact that her boarding-house loomed ahead. Then he started for the smoker. On his way he paused at the seat occupied by the ex-hermit of Baldpate, and fixed his eyes on the pale blue necktie Mr. Peters had resurrected for his return to the world of men.

"Pretty, ain't it?" remarked the hermit, seeing whither Mr. Magee's gaze drifted. "She picked it. I didn't exactly like it when she first gave it to me, but I see my mistake now. I'm wearing it home as a sort of a white flag of truce. Or almost white. Do you know, Mr. Magee, I'm somewhat nervous about what I'll say when I come into her presence again—about my inaugural address, you might put it. What would be your conversation on such an occasion? If you'd been away from a wife for five years, what would you say when you drifted back?"

"That would depend," replied Magee, "on the amount of time she allowed me for my speech."

"You've hit the nail on the head," replied Mr. Peters admiringly. "She's quick. She's like lightning. She won't give me any time if she can help it. That's why I'd like to have a wonderful speech all ready—something that would hold her spellbound and tongue-tied until I finished. It would take a literary classic to do that."

"What you want," laughed Magee, "is a speech with the punch."

"Exactly," agreed Mr. Peters. "I guess I won't go over to Brooklyn the minute I hit New York. I guess I'll study the lights along the big street, and brush elbows with the world a bit, before I reveal myself to her. Maybe if I took in a few shows—but don't think I won't go to her. My mind is made up. And I guess she'll be glad to see me, too. In her way. I got to fix it with her, though, to come back to my post-card trade in the summers. I wonder what she'll say to that. Maybe she could stay at the inn under an assumed name while I was hermiting up at the shack."

He laughed softly.

"It'd be funny, wouldn't it," he said. "Her sitting on the veranda watching me sell post-cards to the ladies, and listening to the various stories of how a lost love has blighted my life, and so forth. Yes, it'd be real funny—only Ellen never had much sense of humor. That was always her great trouble. If you ever marry, Mr. Magee, and I suppose you will, take my advice. Marry a sense of humor first, and a woman incidental-like."