he town. But I have
been given the impression that it is a quiet little place out of the
beaten track, where a man might spend a summer without having to share
it with a lot of other city runaways of his kind."

The clerk smiled and shook his head.

"You might have done that a few years ago, but there's a fine lake, you
know, and some New Orleans people have built a resort house. I
understand it does a pretty fair business in the season."

Having assured himself that the New Orleans leaf in his book of
experience was safely turned and securely pasted down, Griswold was
nettled to find that the mere mention of the name sent creeping little
chills of apprehension trickling up and down his spine. But innate
stubbornness scoffed at the warning; derided and craved further details.

"How large a place is it?"

"Oh, four or five thousand, I should say; possibly more: big enough and
busy enough so that a hundred-room resort house doesn't make it a
souvenir town. It's a nice little city; modern, progressive, and
business-like; trolleys, electric lights, and some manufacturing. Good
people, too. _Front!_ Check the gentleman's grips and show him the cafe.
I'm sorry we can't give you dinner, but the dining-room closes at nine."

"Plenty of time, is there?" Griswold asked.

"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? Your train leaves the Terminal at
eleven-thirty; but you can get into the sleeper any time after eight
o'clock."

The guest had crossed the lobby to the cafe, and the clerk was still
dallying with the memories stirred up by the mention of his boyhood
home, when a little man with weak eyes and a face that out-caricatured
all the caricatures of the Irish, sidled up to the registry desk. The
round-bodied clerk knew him and spoke in terms of accommodation.

"What is it, Patsy?"

"The young gentleman ye was spakin' to: is he gone?"

"He is in the cafe, getting his supper. What did you want of him?"

The weak-eyed little man was running a slow finger down the list of
names on the guest-book, blinking as if the writing or the glare of the
lights on the page dazzled him.

"I drove him, and he did be overpaying me, I think. What was ye saying
his name would be?"

"It's right there, under your finger: Kenneth Griswold, New York."

"Um. And I wondher, now, where does he be living, whin he's at home?"

"I don't know; New York, I suppose, since he registers from there."

"And does he be staying here f'r awhile?"

"No; he is o