Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-03-12

De up IN the morning.. lie StoWeu
away the bill Mr.. Magee had given
him. II guess nothing will interfere
with your lonesomeness. Leastways.
hope 1t won't. Good night"
Mr. Magee babe the man good night
and listened to the thump OF his boots
and the closing Of the great front door
From his windows he watched the
caretaker move down the road with
out looking back, to disappear at last
In the white night.
Throwing off his great coat, Mr..
Magee noisily attacked the fire. The
blaze flared red on his strong humor,
Gus mouth, in his smiling eyes. Next,
in the Pickering half-light of suite
seven. he distributed the contents OF
his travelingbags about. On the
table he placed number Of new
Magazines and few books.
Then Mr.. Magee sat down in the big
leather chair before the fire, and
caught his breath. Here he was at
last. The wild plan he and Hal Bent
ley had crooked up in that Forty-fourth
Street club had actually come to be.
"Seclusion," Magee had cried Der.
muda,' Bentley had suggested. "A
mixture of sea, hotel clerks, and
honeymooners!" the seeker for soil
tude had sneered Some winter
place down South."---from Bentley.
And Irritation lurking in every cor
ner!"-from Magee. "A country town
where you don't know any one" 1.-The
easiest place in the world to get &C
Quainted l must be alone, man!
lAlone!" )"Baldpate Inn" Bentley had
cied in his idiom. why Billy
Baldpate Inn at Christmas--it must
be old John H. Seclusion himself"
Yes. here he was And here was
the solitude he had come to find. Mr..
Magee looked nervously about, and
the smile died out Of his gray eyes.
For the first time misgivings smote
him. Might one not have too much OF
a good thing? A silence like that Of the
tomb had descended. He recalled
stories Of men who went mad from
loneliness. What place lonelier than
this? The wind howled along the
balcony 1t ratified the windows. Out
side his door lay great black cave
in summer gay with men and maids
now like Crusoe's island before the
old man landed.
alone, alone, all, all alone quoted
Mr., Magee. "If I can't think here it
will be because I'm not equipped with
the apparatus. WILL I'll show the
gloomy old critics! I wonder what's
doing in New York;"
New York! Mr.. Magee looked at
his watch. Eight o'clock. The great
street was ablaze. The crowds were
parading from the restaurants to the
theaters. The lectric signs were past
ing lurid legends on long suffering
sky; the taxis were spraying threats
with gasoline; the traffic cop at Broad
way and Forty-second Street was mad
ly earning his pay. Mr.. Magee got
UP and walked the floor. New York!
Probably the telephone in his rooms
was jangling, vainly calling forth to
sport with Amaryllis in the shade OF
the rubber trees Billy Magee-Billy
Magee who sat alone in the silence on
Baldpate Mountain. Few knew OF his
departure. This was the night of
that stupid attempt at theatricals at
the Plaza; stupid in itself but gay. al
most giddy since Helen Faulkner was
to be there. This was the night OF
the dinner to Carey at the club. This
was the night-of many diverting
things.
/, Mr.. Magee picked up magazine.
He wondered how they read, In the old
days, by candle light. He wondered
| If they would have found his own
stories worth the strain on the eyes.
And he also wondered if absolute soil
tude was quite the thing necessary to
the composition Of the novel that
| sill
sneered at his ability.
Absolute solitude! Only the crackle
of the fire, the roar of the wind, and
the ticking of his watch bore him COM
pany. He strobe to the window and
looked down at the few dim lights
that proclaimed the existence of Up
Der Asuuewan Falls. Somewhere.
I down there, was the Commercial
House. Somewhere the girl who had
wept so bitterly in that gloomy little
waiting-room. She was only three
miles away, and the thought cheered
Mr.. Magee. After all, he was not on
a descent island.
| And yet-he was alone. intensely,
almost painfully, alone. Alone in a
vast moaning house that must be his
1 only home until he could go back to
the gay city with his masterpiece.
What a masterpiece! As though with
a surgeons knife it would lay bare the
hearts of men, No tricks Of plot, no
Mr.. Magee paused For sharply in
the silence the bell of his room tele-
phone rang out
! He stood for moment gazing in
wonder. his heart beating swiftly. his
eyes upon the instrument on the wall.
1t was a house phone; he knew that it
could only be rung from the switch
board in the hall below. I'm going
mad already he remarked. and took
down the receiver.
! A blur Of talk, an electric muttering,
a click and all was still.
Mr.. Magee opened the door and step.
ped out into the shadows. He heard
voice below. Noiselessly he crept
to the landing, and gazed down into
the office. A young man sat at the
telephone switchboard; Mr.. Magee
could see in the dim light of a solitary
candle that he was person of rather
hilarious raiment. The candle stood
1 i l.