"You don"t mean," gasped Mr. Quimby, "that you"re going to stay there ten years?"
"Bless you, no," said Mr. Magee. "Critics exaggerate. Two months will do. They say I am a cheap melodramatic ranter. They say I don"t go deep.
They say my thinking process is a scream. I"m afraid they"re right. Now, I"m going to go up to Baldpate Inn, and think. I"m going to get away from melodrama. I"m going to do a novel so fine and literary that Henry Cabot Lodge will come to me with tears in his eyes and ask me to join his bunch of self-made Immortals. I"m going to do all this up there at the inn--sitting on the mountain and looking down on this little old world as Jove looked down from Olympus."
"I don"t know who you mean," objected Mr. Quimby.
"He was a G.o.d--the G.o.d of the fruit-stand men," explained Magee.
"Picture me, if you can, depressed by the overwhelming success of my latest brain-child. Picture me meeting Hal Bentley in a Forty-fourth Street club and asking him for the location of the lonesomest spot on earth. Hal thought a minute. "I"ve got it", he said, "the lonesomest spot that"s happened to date is a summer resort in mid-winter. It makes Crusoe"s island look like Coney on a warm Sunday afternoon in comparison." The talk flowed on, along with other things. Hal told me his father owned Baldpate Inn, and that you were an old friend of his who would be happy for the entire winter over the chance to serve him.
He happened to have a key to the place--the key to the big front door, I guess, from the weight of it--and he gave it to me. He also wrote you to look after me. So here I am."
Mr. Quimby ran his fingers through his white hair.
"Here I am," repeated Billy Magee, "fleeing from the great glitter known as Broadway to do a little rational thinking in the solitudes. It"s getting late, and I suggest that we start for Baldpate Inn at once."
"This ain"t exactly--regular," Mr. Quimby protested. "No, it ain"t what you might call a frequent occurrence. I"m glad to do anything I can for young Mr. Bentley, but I can"t help wondering what his father will say.
And there"s a lot of things you haven"t took into consideration."
"There certainly is, young man," remarked Mrs. Quimby, bustling forward.
"How are you going to keep warm in that big barn of a place?"
"The suites on the second floor," said Mr. Magee, "are, I hear, equipped with fireplaces. Mr. Quimby will keep me supplied with fuel from the forest primeval, for which service he will receive twenty dollars a week."
"And light?" asked Mrs. Quimby.
"For the present, candles. I have forty in that package. Later, perhaps you can find me an oil lamp. Oh, everything will be provided for."
"Well," remarked Mr. Quimby, looking in a dazed fashion at his wife, "I reckon I"ll have to talk it over with ma."
The two retired to the next room, and Mr. Magee fixed his eyes on a "G.o.d Bless Our Home" motto while he awaited their return. Presently they reappeared.
"Was you thinking of eating?" inquired Mrs. Quimby sarcastically, "while you stayed up there?"
"I certainly was," smiled Mr. Magee. "For the most part I will prepare my own meals from cans and--er--jars--and such pagan sources. But now and then you, Mrs. Quimby, are going to send me something cooked as no other woman in the county can cook it. I can see it in your eyes. In my poor way I shall try to repay you."
He continued to smile into Mrs. Quimby"s broad cheerful face. Mr. Magee had the type of smile that moves men to part with ten until Sat.u.r.day, and women to close their eyes and dream of Sir Launcelot. Mrs. Quimby could not long resist. She smiled back. Whereupon Billy Magee sprang to his feet.
"It"s all fixed," he cried. "We"ll get on splendidly. And now--for Baldpate Inn."
"Not just yet," said Mrs. Quimby. "I ain"t one to let anybody go up to Baldpate Inn unfed. I "spose we"re sort o" responsible for you, while you"re up here. You just set right down and I"ll have your supper hot and smoking on the table in no time."
Mr. Magee entered into no dispute on this point, and for half an hour he was the pleased recipient of advice, philosophy, and food. When he had a.s.sured Mrs. Quimby that he had eaten enough to last him the entire two months he intended spending at the inn, Mr. Quimby came in, attired in a huge "before the war" ulster, and carrying a lighted lantern.
"So you"re going to sit up there and write things," he commented. "Well, I reckon you"ll be left to yourself, all right."
"I hope so," responded Mr. Magee. "I want to be so lonesome I"ll sob myself to sleep every night. It"s the only road to immortality. Good-by, Mrs. Quimby. In my fortress on the mountain I shall expect an occasional culinary message from you." He took her plump hand; this motherly little woman seemed the last link binding him to the world of reality.
"Good-by," smiled Mrs. Quimby. "Be careful of matches."
Mr. Quimby led the way with the lantern, and presently they stepped out upon the road. The storm had ceased, but it was still very dark. Far below, in the valley, twinkled the lights of Upper Asquewan Falls.
"By the way, Quimby," remarked Mr. Magee, "is there a girl in your town who has blue eyes, light hair, and the general air of a queen out shopping?"
"Light hair," repeated Quimby. "There"s Sally Perry. She teaches in the Methodist Sunday-school."
"No," said Mr. Magee. "My description was poor, I"m afraid. This one I refer to, when she weeps, gives the general effect of mist on the sea at dawn. The Methodists do not monopolize her."
"I read books, and I read newspapers," said Mr. Quimby, "but a lot of your talk I don"t understand."
"The critics," replied Billy Magee, "could explain. My stuff is only for low-brows. Lead on, Mr. Quimby."
Mr. Quimby stood for a moment in dazed silence. Then he turned, and the yellow of his lantern fell on the dazzling snow ahead. Together the two climbed Baldpate Mountain.
CHAPTER II
ENTER A LOVELORN HABERDASHER
Baldpate Inn did not stand tiptoe on the misty mountain-top. Instead it clung with grim determination to the side of Baldpate, about half-way up, much as a city man clings to the running board of an open street-car. This was the comparison Mr. Magee made, and even as he made it he knew that atmospheric conditions rendered it questionable. For an open street-car suggests summer and the ball park; Baldpate Inn, as it shouldered darkly into Mr. Magee"s ken, suggested winter at its most wintry.
About the great black shape that was the inn, like arms, stretched broad verandas. Mr. Magee remarked upon them to his companion.
"Those porches and balconies and things," he said, "will come in handy in cooling the fevered brow of genius."
"There ain"t much fever in this locality," the practical Quimby a.s.sured him, "especially not in winter."
Silenced, Mr. Magee followed the lantern of Quimby over the snow to the broad steps, and up to the great front door. There Magee produced from beneath his coat an impressive key. Mr. Quimby made as though to a.s.sist, but was waved aside.
"This is a ceremony," Mr. Magee told him, "some day Sunday newspaper stories will be written about it. Baldpate Inn opening its doors to the great American novel!"
He placed the key in the lock, turned it, and the door swung open. The coldest blast of air Mr. Magee had even encountered swept out from the dark interior. He shuddered, and wrapped his coat closer. He seemed to see the white trail from Dawson City, the sled dogs straggling on with the dwindling provisions, the fat Eskimo guide begging for gum-drops by his side.
"Whew," he cried, "we"ve discovered another Pole!"
"It"s stale air," remarked Quimby.
"You mean the Polar atmosphere," replied Magee. "Yes, it is pretty stale. Jack London and Doctor Cook have worked it to death."
"I mean," said Quimby, "this air has been in here alone too long. It"s as stale as last week"s newspaper. We couldn"t heat it with a million fires. We"ll have to let in some warm air from outside first."
"Warm air--humph," remarked Mr. Magee. "Well, live and learn."
The two stood together in a great bare room. The rugs had been removed, and such furniture as remained had huddled together, as if for warmth, in the center of the floor. When they stepped forward, the sound of their shoes on the hard wood seemed the boom that should wake the dead.
"This is the hotel office," explained Mr. Quimby.
At the left of the door was the clerk"s desk; behind it loomed a great safe, and a series of pigeon-holes for the mail of the guests. Opposite the front door, a wide stairway led to a landing half-way up, where the stairs were divorced and went to the right and left in search of the floor above. Mr. Magee surveyed the stairway critically.