their really pitiful pleadings, I
had to flee. I happened to have a friend involved in the management of
Baldpate Inn. I am not at liberty to give his name. He gave me a key. So
here I am. I rely on you to keep my secret. If you perceive a novelist
in the distance, lose no time in warning me."

Mr. Magee paused, chuckling inwardly. He stood looking down at the
lovelorn haberdasher. The latter got to his feet, and solemnly took
Magee's hand.

"I--I--oh, well, you've got me beat a mile, old man," he said.

"You don't mean to say--" began the hurt Magee.

"Oh, that's all right," Mr. Bland assured him. "I believe every word of
it. It's all as real as the haberdashery to me. I'll keep my eye peeled
for novelists. What gets me is, when you boil our two fly-by-night
stories down, I've come here to be alone. You want to be alone. We can't
be alone here together. One of us must clear out."

"Nonsense," answered Billy Magee. "I'll be glad to have you here. Stay
as long as you like."

The haberdasher looked Mr. Magee fully in the eye, and the latter was
startled by the hostility he saw in the other's face.

"The point is," said Mr. Bland, "I don't want you here. Why? Maybe
because you recall beautiful dames--on book covers--and in that way,
Arabella. Maybe--but what's the use? I put it simply. I got to be
alone--alone on Baldpate Mountain. I won't put you out to-night--"

"See here, my friend," cried Mr. Magee, "your grief has turned your
head. You won't put me out to-night, or to-morrow. I'm here to stay.
You're welcome to do the same, if you like. But you stay--with me. I
know you are a man of courage--but it would take at least ten men of
courage to put me out of Baldpate Inn."

They stood eying each other for a moment. Bland's thin lips twisted into
a sneer. "We'll see," he said. "We'll settle all that in the morning."
His tone took on a more friendly aspect "I'm going to pick out a downy
couch in one of these rooms," he said, "and lay me down to sleep. Say, I
could greet a blanket like a long-lost friend."

Mr. Magee proffered some of the covers that Quimby had given him, and
accompanied Mr. Bland to suite ten, across the hall. He explained the
matter of "stale air", and assisted in the opening of windows. The
conversation was mostly facetious, and Mr. Bland's last remark concerned
the fickleness of woman. With a brisk good night, Mr. Magee returned to
number seven.

But he made no move toward the chilly brass b