owing to the heritage of too many table d'hotes
about the middle. Well, McMann sat at my side, and little by little,
with the sea washing sad-like near by, I got from him the story of his
exile, and why.

"I don't need to tell you it was woman had sent him off for the equator.
This one's name was Marie, I think, and she worked at a lunch-counter in
Kansas City. From the young man's bill-of-fare description of her, I
gathered that she had cheeks like peaches and cream, but a heart like a
lunch-counter doughnut, which is hard.

"'She cast you off?' I asked.

"'She threw me down,' said he.

"Well, it seems he'd bought a ticket for that loud-colored country where
I met him, and come down there to forget. 'I could buy the ticket,' he
said, 'as soon as I learned how to pronounce the name of this town. But
I can't forget. I've tried. It's hopeless.' And he sat there looking
like a man whose best friend has died, owing him money. I won't go into
his emotions. Mr. Bland, up at the inn, is suffering them at the present
moment, I'm told. They're unimportant; I'll hurry on to the lie. I
simply say he was sorrowful, and it seemed to me a crime, what with the
sun so bright, and the sea so blue, and the world so full of a number of
things. Yes, it certainly was a crime, and I decided he had to be
cheered up at any cost. How? I thought a while, gazing up at the sky,
and then it came to me--the lie--the great glorious lie--and I told it."

The hermit looked in defiance round the listening circle.

"'You're chuck full of sorrow now,' I said to McMann, 'but it won't last
long.' He shook his head. 'Nonsense,' I told him. 'Look at me. Do you
see me doing a heart-bowed-down act under the palms? Do you find
anything but joy in my face?' And he couldn't, the lie unfolding itself
in such splendor to me. 'You?' he asked. 'Me,' I said. 'Ten years ago I
was where you are to-day. A woman had spoken to me as Mabel--or
Marie--or what was it?--spoke to you.'

"I could see I had the boy interested. I unfolded my story, as it
occurred to me at the moment. 'Yes,' said I, 'ten years ago I saw her
first. Dancing as a butterfly dances from flower to flower. Dancing on
the stage--a fairy sprite. I loved her--worshiped her. It could never
be. There in the dark of the wings, she told me so. And she shed a
tear--a sweet tear of sorrow at parting.

"'I went to my room,' I told McMann, 'with a lot of time-tables and
steamship books. Bright red books--the