r--Parker----" began Tom, and stopped.

The "biggest hotel man in the country" looked at the greenest young
innkeeper, and there was satisfaction in his bright black eyes.

"Not any thanks, son. Should have croaked in one week more if I couldn't
have worked off a few pounds of high pressure. This sort of thing to
me's like a game to a gambler--as I told you. Had to keep incog., or I'd
have had a dozen parties from town after me on one deal or another.
Thought I could put this little stunt through without giving myself
away--but came downstairs five minutes too soon. Went off pretty
well--eh? You'll have patronage after this, all right. No--no thanks, I
said. I'm under obligations to you for trusting me to run the thing.
It's saved my life!"

Well, if it were all a game, Tom thought, as he watched Mr. Christopher
Parker run lightly up the stairs, a few minutes later, it was certainly
a wondrous friendly one.

_And Boswell's Inn was now known to be only sixteen short motor miles
from town._

II

HONOUR AND THE GIRL

He lay back among the crimson pillows in his big chair, close beside the
fire, with his eyes on the burning logs. A tablet and pen lay in his
lap, and he had written a few paragraphs, but he was listening now to
certain sounds which came from below stairs: voices, laughter,
scurryings up and down the hall and staircase; then the slam of a heavy
door, the tuneful ring of sleighbells in a rapid _decrescendo_ down the
street, and absolute silence within the house. Three times in the last
fifteen minutes before the door closed somebody had looked in upon the
occupant of the big chair to say something like this:

"Oh, Jerry--sorry we couldn't spend Nan's last evening with you. Too bad
this wretched Van Antwerp dance had to come to-night--Christmas Eve,
too. Busy, aren't you, as usual? At work on those sketches of country
life in winter? You clever boy--who but you could make so much out of so
little? Anything we can do for you before we are off? Nan hates to go,
since it's the very last evening of her visit. She thought we all ought
to give up and stay with you, but we told her you disliked to be
'babied.' Well--good-night, old fellow. Don't write too late. You know
the doctor thinks plenty of sleep is part of your cure."

That was the sort of thing they had been saying to him for a year now--a
year. And he seemed no nearer health than when he had been sent home
from his gloriously busy, aboundin