They walked on in silence. Then shyly the girl turned her head. Oh, most a.s.suredly, she was desirable. Clumsy as had been his declaration, Mr.

Magee resolved to stick to it through eternity.

"I'm sorry I spoke as I did," she said. "Will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" he cried. "Why, I--"

"And now," she interrupted, "let us talk of other things. Of ships, and shoes, and sealing-wax--"

"All the topics in the world," he replied, "can lead to but one with me--"

"Ships?" asked the girl.

"For honeymoons," he suggested.

"Shoes?"

"In some circles of society, I believe they are flung at bridal parties."

"And sealing-wax?"

"On the license, isn't it?" he queried.

"I'll not try you on cabbage and kings," laughed the girl. "Please, oh, please, don't fail me. You won't, will you?" Her face was serious. "You see, it means so very much to me."

"Fail you?" cried Magee. "I'd hardly do that now. In ten minutes that package will be in your hands--along with my fate, my lady."

"I shall be so relieved." She turned her face away, there was a faint flush in the cheek toward Mr. Magee. "And--happy," she whispered under her breath.

They were then at the great front door of Baldpate Inn.

CHAPTER XII

WOE IN NUMBER SEVEN

Inside, before the office fire, Miss Thornhill read a magazine in the indolent fashion so much affected at Baldpate Inn during the heated term; while the mayor of Reuton chatted amiably with the ponderously coy Mrs. Norton. Into this circle burst the envoys to the hermitage, flushed, energetic, snowflaked.

"Hail to the chef who in triumph advances!" cried Mr. Magee.

He pointed to the door, through which Mr. Max was leading the captured Mr. Peters.

"You got him, didyu?" rasped Mrs. Norton.

"Without the use of anesthetics," answered Magee. "Everybody ready for one of Mr. Peters' inimitable lunches?"

"Put me down at the head of the list," contributed the mayor.

Myra Thornhill laid down her magazine, and fixed her great black eyes upon the radiant girl in corduroy.

"And was the walk in the morning air," she asked, "all you expected?"

"All, and much more," laughed Miss Norton, mischievously regarding the man who had babbled to her of love on the mountain. "By the way, enjoy Mr. Peters while you can. He's back for just one day."

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow the cook leaves, as the fellow says," supplemented Mr. Max, removing his overcoat.

"How about a quick lunch, Peters?" inquired Magee.

"Out of what, I'd like to know," put in Mrs. Norton. "Not a thing in the house to eat. Just like a man."

"You didn't look in the right place, ma'am," replied Mr. Peters with relish. "I got supplies for a couple of days in the kitchen."

"Well, what's the sense in hiding 'em?" the large lady inquired.

"It ain't hiding--it's system," explained Mr. Peters. "Something women don't understand." He came close to Mr. Magee, and whispered low: "You didn't warn me there was another of 'em."

"The last, on my word of honor," Magee told him.

"The last," sneered Mr. Peters. "There isn't any last up here." And with a sidelong glance at the new Eve in his mountain Eden, he turned away to the kitchen.

"Now," whispered Magee to Miss Norton, "I'll get you that package. I'll prove that it was for you I fought and bled the mayor of Reuton. Watch for our chance--when I see you again I'll have it in my pocket."

"You mustn't fail me," she replied. "It means so much."

Mr. Magee started for the stairs. Between him and them loomed suddenly the great bulk of Mr. Cargan. His hard menacing eyes looked full into Magee's.

"I want to speak to you, young fellow," he remarked.

"I'm flattered," said Magee, "that you find my company so enchanting. In ten minutes I'll be ready for another interview."

"You're ready now," answered the mayor, "even if you don't know it." His tone was that of one correcting a child. He took Mr. Magee's arm in a grip which recalled to that gentleman a fact the muckraking stories always dwelt on--how this Cargan had, in the old days, "put away his man" in many shady corners of a great city.

"Come over here," said Cargan. He led the way to a window. Over his shoulder Magee noted the troubled eyes of Miss Norton following. "Sit down. I've been trying to dope you out, and I think I've got you. I've seen your kind before. Every few months one of 'em breezes into Reuton, spends a whole day talking to a few rats I've had to exterminate from politics, and then flies back to New York with a ten-page story of my vicious career all ready for the linotypers. Yes, sir--I got you. You write sweet things for the magazines."

"Think so?" inquired Magee.

"Know it," returned the mayor heartily. "So you're out after old Jim Cargan's scalp again, are you? I thought that now, seeing stories on the corruption of the courts is so plentiful, you'd let the shame of the city halls alone for a while. But--well, I guess I'm what you guys call good copy. Big, brutal, uneducated, picturesque--you see I read them stories myself. How long will the American public stand being ruled by a man like this, when it might be authorizing pretty boys with kid gloves to get next to the good things? That's the dope, ain't it--the old dope of the reform gang--the ballyhoo of the bunch that can't let the existing order stand? Don't worry, I ain't going to get started on that again. But I want to talk to you serious--like a father. There was a young fellow like you once--"

"Like me?"

"Exactly. He was out working on long hours and short pay for the reform gang, and he happened to get hold of something that a man I knew--a man high up in public office--wanted, and wanted bad. The young fellow was going to get two hundred dollars for the article he was writing. My friend offered him twenty thousand to call it off. What'd the young fellow do?"

"Wrote the article, of course," said Magee.

"Now--now," reproved Cargan. "That remark don't fit in with the estimate I've made of you. I think you're a smart boy. Don't disappoint me. This young fellow I speak of--he was smart, all right. He thought the matter over. He knew the reform bunch, through and through. All glory and no pay, serving them. He knew how they chased bubbles, and made a lot of noise, and never got anywhere in the end. He thought it over, Magee, the same as you're going to do. 'You're on,' says this lad, and added five figures to his roll as easy as we'd add a nickel. He had brains, that guy."