“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.”