"I shall ask Peters to serve you," said Magee. "I shall appeal to his gallant side. But I must proceed gently. This is his first day as our cook, and you know how necessary a good first impression is with a new cook. I'll appeal to his better nature."

"Don't do it," cried the girl. "Don't emphasize us to him in any way, or he may exercise his right as cook and leave. Just ignore us. We'll play at being our own bell-boys."

"Ignore you," cried Mr. Magee. "What Herculean tasks you set. I'm not equal to that one." He picked up their traveling-bags and led the way up-stairs. "I'm something of a bell-boy myself, when roused," he said.

The girl selected suite seventeen, at the farther end of the corridor from Magee's apartments. "It's the very one I used to have, years and years ago—at least two or three years ago," she said. "Isn't it stupid? All the furniture in a heap."

"And cold," said Mrs. Norton. "My land, I wish I was back by my own fire."

"I'll make you regret your words, Mrs. Norton," cried Magee. He threw up the windows, pulled off his coat, and set to work on the furniture. The girl bustled about, lightening his work by her smile. Mrs. Norton managed to get consistently in the way. When he had the furniture distributed, he procured logs and tried his hand at a fire. Then he stood, his black hair disheveled, his hands soiled, but his heart very gay, before the girl of the station.

"I hope you don't expect a tip," she said, laughing.

"I do," he said, coming closer, and speaking in a voice that was not for the ear of the chaperon. "I want a tip on this—do you really act?"

She looked at him steadily.

"Once," she said, "when I was sixteen, I appeared in an amateur play at school. It was my first and last appearance on the stage."

"Thanks, lady," remarked Mr. Magee in imitation of the bell-boy he was supposed to be. He sought number seven. There he made himself again presentable, after which he descended to the office.

Mr. Bland sat reading the New York paper before the fire. From the little card-room and the parlor, the two rooms to the right and left of the hotel's front door, Quimby had brought forth extra chairs. He stood now by the large chair that held Professor Bolton, engaged in conversation with that gentleman.

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