was missing her as he had never expected to miss
any elderly lady with iron-gray curls and a cast in one eye.

"Nice night," observed Tom to Mr. Perkins.

"First-class."

"Getting cooled off a bit up here?"

"Pretty well."

"Are, you--having everything you want?"

Tom asked the question with some diffidence. It was a matter of regret
with him that he couldn't afford yet to put young Tim into buttons, but
without them he was sure the lad made as alert a bellboy and porter as
could be asked.

"Nothing to complain of."

Tom wished Mr. Perkins wouldn't be so taciturn. The proprietor of the
Inn That Couldn't Get a Start was feeling so blue to-night that speech
with some one besides his depressed family was almost a necessity. He
couldn't talk with the women; Mr. Griffith, though kindly enough, had
his nose forever buried in a book. Perkins looked as if he could talk if
he would, and have something to say, too. Tom tried to think of an
observation which would draw this silent man out. But quite suddenly,
and greatly to Tom's surprise, Mr. Perkins began to draw Tom out. Even
so, his questions were like shots from a gun, so brief and to the point
were they.

"Doing any advertising?" broke the silence first, from a corner of the
thin mouth. Perkins's cigar had been shifted to the opposite corner. He
did not look at Tom, but continued to gaze off toward a certain curious
effect of moonlight against the rocky sides of the canyon.

"We have a card in all the city papers."

"Any specials? Write-ups?"

"Well, this is our first season, and we didn't feel as if we could
afford to pay for that."

"No pulls, eh?"

"You mean----?"

"No friends among the newspaper men?"

"I don't know one. They don't seem to come up here. I wish they would."

"Ever ask one?"

"I don't know any," repeated Tom.

A short laugh, more like a grunt, was Perkins's reply. Tom didn't see
what there was to laugh at in the misfortune of having no acquaintance
among the writing fellows. He waited eagerly for the next question. It
was worth a good deal to him merely to have this outsider show a spark
of interest in the fortunes of Boswell's Inn.

"When did you open up?" It came just as he feared Perkins was going to
drop the subject.

"The third of June."

"Own the house?"

"No--lease it, cheap. It's an old place, but we put all we could afford
into freshening it up."

"Cook a permanent one?"

The form of the question perplexed Tom f