or an instant, but it presently
resolved itself, and he was grinning as he replied: "Sure she is. It's
my mother. Do you like her cooking?"

"A-1."

Ah, Tom would tell his mother that! The young man flushed slightly in
the darkness of the porch. It was almost the first compliment that had
been paid her, and she worked like a slave, too.

"Little waitress your sister?"

"Yes. Sue's young, but we think she does pretty well."

"Delivers the goods. Housekeeper a member of the family, too?"

"Yes--and Tim's my brother. Oh, it's all in the family. The only
trouble is----" he hesitated.

"Lack of patronage?"

"We can't keep open much longer if things don't improve." The moment the
words were out Tom regretted them. He didn't know how he had come to
speak them. He hadn't meant to give this fact away. Certainly there had
been nothing particularly sympathetic in the tone of Perkins's choppy
questions. But the other man's next words knocked his regrets out of his
mind in a jiffy.

"Could you entertain a dozen men at supper to-morrow night if they came
in a bunch without warning?"

"Give us the chance!"

"Chance might happen--better be prepared. I expect to be away over
to-morrow night myself, but have the tip that a crowd may be coming out
to sample the place. It may be a mistake--don't know."

"We'll be ready. Would they come by train?"

"Don't ask me--none of my picnic. Merely overheard the thing suggested."
And Perkins, rising, cast away the close-smoked stub of his cigar.
"Good-night," said he, carelessly enough, and strolled in through the
wide hall of the old stone house. Tom looked after him as he mounted the
stairs. The young innkeeper's spirits had gone up with a bound. A dozen
men to supper! Well--he thought they could entertain them. He would go
and tell his mother and Bertha on the instant; the prospect would cheer
them immensely. He wondered how or where Perkins had overheard this
rumour. At the post-office, most likely. It was a gossipy place, the
centre of the tiny burg at the foot of the mountain, an eighth of a mile
away, where a dozen small shops and half a hundred houses strung along
the one small street, at the end of which the two daily trains made
their half-minute stops.

* * * * *

The dozen men had come and gone. There were fourteen of them, to be
exact, and they had climbed out of a couple of big touring cars with
sounds of hilarity which made the elderly