utwardly the glances
they exchanged were nonchalant and casual, but somehow Mr. Magee felt
that among the matters they established were social position, wit,
cunning, guile, and taste in dress.

"May I help with the coffee?" asked Miss Thornhill.

"Only to drink it," replied the girl of the station. "It's all made now,
you see."

As if in proof of this, Mrs. Norton appeared in the dining-room door
with a tray, and simultaneously opened an endless monologue:

"I don't know what you men will say to this, I'm sure--nothing in the
house but some coffee and a few crackers--not even any canned soup, and
I thought from the way things went yesterday he had ten thousand cans of
it at the very least--but men are all alike--what name did you say?--oh
yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure--excuse my not
shaking hands--as I was saying, men are all alike--Norton thought if he
brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out--"

She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn
swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory
substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly.

"Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the hermit's shack and reason
with him as best I can. I shall paint in touching colors our sad plight.
If the man has an atom of decency--"

"A walk on the mountain in the morning," said Miss Thornhill quickly.
"Splendid. I--"

"Wonderful," put in Miss Norton. "I, for one, can't resist. Even though
I haven't been invited, I'm going along." She smiled sweetly. She had
beaten the other girl by the breadth of a hair, and she knew it. New
glories shone in her eyes.

"Good for you!" said Magee. The evil hour of explanations was at hand,
surely. "Run up and get your things."

While Miss Norton was gone, Mr. Cargan and Lou Max engaged in earnest
converse near a window. After which Mr. Max pulled on his overcoat.

"I ain't been invited either," he said, "but I reckon I'll go along. I
always wanted to see what a hermit lived like when he's really buckled
down to the hermit business. And then a walk in the morning has always
been my first rule for health. You don't mind, do you?"

"Who am I," asked Magee, "that I should stand between you and health?
Come along, by all means."

With the blue corduroy suit again complete, and the saucy hat perched on
her blond head, Miss Norton ran down the stairs and received the news
that Mr. Max also