Part 10 (2/2)
”Didn't I try?” cried Quimby. ”Do you think they'd let me? No, the public might see them and demand them everywhere. Once, I thought I had convinced somebody. It was down in Reuton--the Suburban Railway.” There was a rustle as Mr. Bland let his paper fall to the floor. ”Old Henry Thornhill was president of the road--he is yet, I guess--but young Hayden and a fellow named David Kendrick were running it. Kendrick was on my side--he almost had Hayden. They were going to let me lay a stretch of track with my joints. Then--something happened. Maybe you remember. Kendrick disappeared in the night--he's never been seen since.”
”I do remember,” said the professor softly.
”Hayden turned me down,” went on Quimby. ”The money was all gone. So I came back to Upper Asquewan--caretaker of an inn that overlooks the property my father owned--the property I squandered for a chance to save human lives. It's all like a dream now--those eight years. And it nearly drives me mad, sometimes, to think that it took me eight years--eight years to find it out. I'll just straighten things around a bit.”
He moved away, and the men sat in silence for a time. Then the professor spoke very gently:
”Poor devil--to have had his dream of service--and then grow old on Baldpate.”
The two joined Mr. Bland by the fire. Mr. Magee had put from his mind all intention of work. The maze of events through which he wandered held him bewildered and enthralled. He looked at the haberdasher and the university scholar and asked himself if they were real, or if he was still asleep in a room on a side street in New York, waiting for the cheery coming of Geoffrey. He asked himself still more perplexedly if the creature that came toward him now through the dining-room door was real--the hairy Hermit of Baldpate, like a figure out of some old print, his market basket on his arm again, his coat b.u.t.toned to the chin.
”Well, everything's s.h.i.+pshape in the kitchen,” announced the hermit cheerfully. ”I couldn't go without seeing to that. I wish you the best of luck, gentlemen--and good-by.”
”Good-by?” cried the professor.
”By the G.o.ds, he's leaving us,” almost wept Mr. Bland.
”It can't be,” said Mr. Magee.
”It has to be,” said the Hermit of Baldpate, solemnly shaking his head.
”I'd like to stay with you, and I would of, if they hadn't come. But here they are--and when women come in the door, I fly out of the window, as the saying is.”
”But, Peters,” pleaded Magee, ”you're not going to leave us in the hole like this?”
”Sorry,” replied Peters, ”I can please men, but I can't please women. I tried to please one once--but let the dead past bury its dead. I live on Baldpate in a shack to escape the s.e.x, and it wouldn't be consistent for me to stay here now. I got to go. I hate to, like a dog, but I got to.”
”Peters,” said Mr. Magee, ”I'm surprised. After giving your word to stay! And who knows--you may be able to gather valuable data for your book. Stick around. These women won't bother you. I'll make them promise never to ask about the love-affair you didn't have--never even to come near you. And we'll pay you beyond the dreams of avarice of a Broadway chef. Won't we, gentlemen?”
The others nodded. Mr. Peters visibly weakened.
”Well--” he began. ”I--” His eyes were on the stair. Mr. Magee also looked in that direction and saw the girl of the station smiling down.
She no longer wore coat and hat, and the absence of the latter revealed a glory of golden hair that became instantly a rival to the suns.h.i.+ne in that drear bare room.
”No, Peters,” she said, ”you mustn't go. We couldn't permit it. Mamma and I will go.”
She continued to smile at the obviously dazzled Peters. Suddenly he spoke in a determined tone:
”No--don't do that. I'll stay.” Then he turned to Magee, and continued for that gentleman's ear alone: ”Dog-gone it, we're all alike. We resolve and resolve, and then one of them looks at us, and it's all forgot. I had a friend who advertised for a wife, leastways, he was a friend until he advertised. He got ninety-two replies, seventy of 'em from married men advising against the step. 'I'm cured,' he says to me.
'Not for me.' Did he keep his word? No. A week after he married a widow just to see if what the seventy said was true. I'm mortal. I hang around the buzz-saw. If you give me a little money, I'll go down to the village and buy the provisions for lunch.”
Gleefully Mr. Magee started the hermit on his way, and then went over to where the girl stood at the foot of the stairs.
”I promised him,” he told her, ”you'd ask no questions regarding his broken heart. It seems he hasn't any.”
”That's horrid of him, isn't it?” she smiled. ”Every good hermit is equipped with a broken heart. I certainly shan't bother him. I came down to get some water.”
They went together to the kitchen, found a pail, and filled it with icy water from the pump at the rear of the inn. Inside once more, Mr. Magee remarked thoughtfully:
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