.

At half past five I just about gave up. I was sitting in front of the
fire wondering why I'd taken influenza the spring before from getting my
feet wet in a shower, when I had been standing in a mineral spring for
so many years that it's a wonder I'm not web-footed. It was when I had
influenza that the old doctor made the will, you remember. Maybe I was
crying, I don't recall.

It was dark outside, and nothing inside but firelight. Suddenly I seemed
to feel somebody looking at the back of my neck and I turned around.
There was a man standing outside one of the windows, staring in.

My first thought, of course, was that it was Mr. Dick, but just as the
face vanished I saw that it wasn't. It was older by three or four years
than Mr. Dick's and a bit fuller.

I'm not nervous. I've had to hold my own against chronic grouches too
long to have nerves, so I went to the door and looked out. The man
came around the corner just then and I could see him plainly in the
firelight. He was covered with snow, and he wore a sweater and no
overcoat, but he looked like a gentleman.

"I beg your pardon for spying," he said, "but the fire looked so snug!
I've been trying to get to the hotel over there, but in the dark I've
lost the path."

"That's not a hotel," I snapped, for that touched me on the raw. "That's
Hope Springs Sanatorium, and this is one of the Springs."

"Oh, Hope Springs, internal instead of eternal!" he said. "That's
awfully bad, isn't it? To tell you the truth, I think I'd better come in
and get some; I'm short on hope just now."

I thought that was likely enough, for although his voice was cheerful
and his eyes smiled, there was a drawn look around his mouth, and he
hadn't shaved that day. I wish I had had as much experience in learning
what's right with folks as I have had in learning what's wrong with
them.

"You'd better come in and get warm, anyhow," I told him, "only don't
spring any more gags. I've been 'Hebe' for fourteen years and I've
served all the fancy drinks you can name over the brass railing of that
spring. Nowadays, when a fellow gets smart and asks for a Mamie Taylor,
I charge him a Mamie Taylor price."

He shut the door behind him and came over to the fire.

"I'm pretty well frozen," he said. "Don't be astonished if I melt before
your eyes; I've been walking for hours."

Now that I had a better chance to see him I'd sized up that drawn look
around his mouth.

"Missed your luncheon, I