n."

The two stood together in a great bare room. The rugs had been removed,
and such furniture as remained had huddled together, as if for warmth,
in the center of the floor. When they stepped forward, the sound of
their shoes on the hard wood seemed the boom that should wake the dead.

"This is the hotel office," explained Mr. Quimby.

At the left of the door was the clerk's desk; behind it loomed a great
safe, and a series of pigeon-holes for the mail of the guests. Opposite
the front door, a wide stairway led to a landing half-way up, where the
stairs were divorced and went to the right and left in search of the
floor above. Mr. Magee surveyed the stairway critically.

"A great place," he remarked, "to show off the talents of your
dressmaker, eh, Quimby? Can't you just see the stunning gowns coming
down that stair in state, and the young men below here agitated in their
bosoms?"

"No, I can't," said Mr. Quimby frankly.

"I can't either, to tell the truth," laughed Billy Magee. He turned up
his collar. "It's like picturing a summer girl sitting on an iceberg and
swinging her open-work hosiery over the edge. I don't suppose it's
necessary to register. I'll go right up and select my apartments."

It was upon a suite of rooms that bore the number seven on their door
that Mr. Magee's choice fell. A large parlor with a fireplace that a few
blazing logs would cheer, a bedroom whose bed was destitute of all save
mattress and springs, and a bathroom, comprised his kingdom. Here, too,
all the furniture was piled in the center of the rooms. After Quimby had
opened the windows, he began straightening the furniture about.

Mr. Magee inspected his apartment. The windows were all of the low
French variety, and opened out upon a broad snow-covered balcony which
was in reality the roof of the first floor veranda. On this balcony
Magee stood a moment, watching the trees on Baldpate wave their black
arms in the wind, and the lights of Upper Asquewan Falls wink knowingly
up at him. Then he came inside, and his investigations brought him,
presently to the tub in the bathroom.

"Fine," he cried, "a cold plunge in the morning before the daily
struggle for immortality begins."

He turned the spigot. Nothing happened.

"I reckon," drawled Mr. Quimby from the bedroom, "you'll carry your cold
plunge up from the well back of the inn before you plunge into it. The
water's turned off. We can't take chances with busted pipes."

"Of