e that gave him his start--and didn't know how to go at it. Well,
so long!" he called out, as I seized my hat and streaked for the train.

* * * * *

It was dinner time when the train pulled in at Perkinsville. The town
was as undistinguished as I expected. I was too hungry to care about
castles at the moment, so I took the 'bus for the Commercial Hotel, an
establishment that seemed to live up to its name, both in sentiment and
in accommodation. The landlord, Mr. Spike, referred bitterly to the
castle, which, he explained, was, by its dominating presence, "spoilin'
the prosperous appearance of Perkinsville." Dinner over, he led me to a
side porch.

"How does Perkinsville look with that--with that curio squattin' on top
of it?" asked Mr. Spike sternly, as he pointed over the local livery
stable, over Smith Brothers' Plow Works, over Odd Fellows' Hall, and up,
up to the bleak hills beyond, where, poised like a stony coronet on a
giant's brow, rose the great Norman towers and frowning buttresses of
Gauntmoor Castle. I rubbed my eyes. No, it _couldn't_ be real--it must
be a wizard's work!

"What's old Hobson got out of it?" said Mr. Spike in my ear. "Nothin'
but an old stone barn, where he can set all day nursin' a grouch and
keepin' his daughter Anita--they do say he does--under lock and key for
fear somebody's goin' to marry her for her money."

Mr. Spike looked up at the ramparts defiantly, even as the Saxon churl
must have gazed in an earlier, far sadder land.

"It's romantic," I suggested.

"Yes, _darn_ rheumatic," agreed Mr. Spike.

"Is it open for visitors?" I asked innocently.

"Hobson?" cackled Spike. "He'd no more welcome a stranger to that place
than he'd welcome--a ghost. He's a hol-ee terror, Hobson!"

Mr. Spike turned away to referee a pool game down in the barroom.

The fires of a December sunset flared behind Gauntmoor and cast the grim
shadows of Medievalism over Mediocrity, which lay below. Presently the
light faded, and I grew tired of gazing. Since Hobson would permit no
tourists to inspect his castle, why was I here on this foolish trip?
Already I was planning to wire Aunt Elizabeth a sarcastic reference to
being marooned at Christmas with a castle on my hands, when a voice at
my shoulder said suddenly:

"Mr. Hobson sends his compliments, sir, and wants to know would Mr.
Pierrepont come up to Gauntmoor for the night?"

A groom in a plum-colored livery stood