Part 2 (1/2)

”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 fas.h.i.+on 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.