Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-19
Continued from page II

gether charming | could not tear myself
away"
81 fear" she laughed, @you are old in the
ways of the world. A passion for sleep seems
to have seized the hermits. The professor
has gone to his room for that purpose. And
bers over there" She pointed to the haber-
dasher, inert in a big chair drawn up near the
clerks desk. "Only you and l in all the
world awake"
"Pretty lonesome, isn't it?" Magee
glanced over his shoulder at the shadows
that crept in on them.
Il was finding it very busy when you
came" she answered. "You see, | have
known the inn when it was gay with summer
people, and as | sat here by the fire | pre-
tended | saw the ghosts of a lot of people
knew fitting about in the dusk. The rock
ing chair fleet sailed by"
"The what?"
"Black flag flying, decks cleared for action
smiled family. 1--WE always called them
hat,-bitter, unkind old women who sat
hour after hour on the veranda, and rocked
and gossiped, and gossiped and rocked. All
the old women in the world seem to gather
at summer hotels. And oh the cruel mouths
the fleet had-just thin lines of mouths!
| used to look at them and wonder if anyone
had ever kissed them" The girls eyes were
very large and tender in the freight.
"And | saw some poor little ghosts weep
ing in a corner she went on,-"a few that
the fleet had run down and sunk in the sea of
gossip. A little ghost whose mother had not
been all she should have been, and the fleet
found it out, and rocked, and whispered,
and she went away And few who were
poor-the most terrible of sins-to them the
fleet showed no mercy. And fine, proud
girl, Myra Thornhill, who was engaged to
a man named Kendrick, and who never dared
come here again after Kendrick suddenly
disappeared, because of the whispered dis
honors the fleet heaped upon his head
"What wicked women!' said Magee.
"The wickedest women in the world, an
swered the girl. "But every summer resort
must have its fleet. l doubt if any other
ever had it's Admiral though-and that
makes Baldpate supreme"
ats Admiral?"
ayes. He isn't really that, imagine:
sort of vice, or assistant or whatever it is,
long ago retired from the navy. Every sum-
mer he comes here, and the place revolves
about him. It's all so funny! / wonder if
any other crowd attains such heights of
snObbishneSS as that at summer resort!
It's the Admiral this, and the Admiral that,
from the moment he enters the door. Nearly
every day the manager of Baldpate has
new picture of the Admiral taken, and hangs
it here in the hotel. III show them to you
when it's light. There's one over there by
the desk, of the Admiral and the manager
together, and the manager has thrown his
arm carelessly over the Admiral's shoulder
with See how we'll know him! written all
over his stupid face. Oh, what snobs they
are!"
"And the f1eet?" asked Magee
@Worships him. They fish all day for
smile from him. They keep track of his
goings and comings, and when he is in the
cardroom playing his silly old game of soil
taire they run down their victims in subdued
tones so as not to disturb him."
"What an interesting place!" said Magee.
II must visit Baldpate next summer. Will
will you be here?"
dts so amusing!" she smiled, ignoring the
question. "You II enjoy it. And it isn't all
fleet and Admiral. There's happiness, and
romance and whispering on the stairs. At
night, when the lights are all blazing and
the band is playing waltzes in the casino,
and somebody is giving dinner in the grill
room, and the girls fit about in the shadows
looking too sweet for words-well, Baldpate
Inn is a rather enhancing spot | remember
those nights very often now"