d see it. They didn't want the expense of a change."

Mr. Quimby looked out at the sunlit stretch of snow.

"Eight years," he repeated, "I fought and pleaded. No, I begged--that
was the word--I begged. You'd be surprised to know the names of some of
the men who kept me waiting in their private offices, and sneered at me
over their polished desks. They turned me down--every one. Some of them
played me--as though I'd been a fish. They referred me to other ends of
the same big game, laughing in their sleeves, I guess, at the knowledge
of how hopeless it was. Oh, they made a fine fool of me."

"You might have put down some of your joints at your own expense,"
suggested the professor.

"Didn't I try?" cried Quimby. "Do you think they'd let me? No, the
public might see them and demand them everywhere. Once, I thought I had
convinced somebody. It was down in Reuton--the Suburban Railway." There
was a rustle as Mr. Bland let his paper fall to the floor. "Old Henry
Thornhill was president of the road--he is yet, I guess--but young
Hayden and a fellow named David Kendrick were running it. Kendrick was
on my side--he almost had Hayden. They were going to let me lay a
stretch of track with my joints. Then--something happened. Maybe you
remember. Kendrick disappeared in the night--he's never been seen
since."

"I do remember," said the professor softly.

"Hayden turned me down," went on Quimby. "The money was all gone. So I
came back to Upper Asquewan--caretaker of an inn that overlooks the
property my father owned--the property I squandered for a chance to save
human lives. It's all like a dream now--those eight years. And it nearly
drives me mad, sometimes, to think that it took me eight years--eight
years to find it out. I'll just straighten things around a bit."

He moved away, and the men sat in silence for a time. Then the professor
spoke very gently:

"Poor devil--to have had his dream of service--and then grow old on
Baldpate."

The two joined Mr. Bland by the fire. Mr. Magee had put from his mind
all intention of work. The maze of events through which he wandered held
him bewildered and enthralled. He looked at the haberdasher and the
university scholar and asked himself if they were real, or if he was
still asleep in a room on a side street in New York, waiting for the
cheery coming of Geoffrey. He asked himself still more perplexedly if
the creature that came toward him now through the dining-room door was
real