solitaries with similar tastes can hope to. Osmun guessed, though Creede denied it, that the Good Samaritan deed of shelter must rouse neighborhood animosity against the Scotchman.

Osmun guessed, and with equal correctness, that this silent and broken Scot would be bitterly offended at any offer of money payment[18] for his hospitality. And Vail set his own ingenuity to work for means of rewarding the kindness.

[18]

As a result, within six months Malcolm Creede was installed as manager (“factor,” Creede called it) of the huge new Berkshire estate of Vailholme and was supervising work on a big new house built for him by Osmun in a corner of the estate.

Creede was woefully ignorant of business matters. Coming into a small inheritance from a Scotch uncle, he turned the pittance over to Vail for investment. And he was merely delighted—in no way suspicious—when the investments brought him in an income of preposterous size. Osmun Vail never did things by halves.

Deeply grateful, Creede threw his energy and boundless enthusiasm into his new duties. He went further. One of his twin sons he christened “Clive” for the inheritance-leaving uncle in Scotland. But the other he named “Osmun,” in honor of his benefactor. Vail, much gratified at the compliment, insisted on taking over the education of both lads. The childless bachelor reveled in his rôle of fairy godfather to them.

But there was another result of Osmun Vail’s[19] chilly vigil in the half-finished hilltop mansion. During the hour before Creede had come to his rescue the cold and hungry multimillionaire had taken a vow as solemn as it was fantastic.

[19]

He swore he would set aside not less than ten of his house’s forty-three rooms for the use of any possible wayfarers who might be stranded, as he had been, in that inhospitable wilderness, and who could afford to pay for decent accommodations. Not tramps or beggars, but folk who, like himself, might come that way with means for buying food and shelter, and to whom such food and shelter might elsewhere be denied.

This oath he talked over with Creede. The visionary Scot could see nothing ridiculous about it. Accordingly, ten good rooms were allotted mentally to paying guests, and a clause in Vail’s will demanded that his heirs maintain such rooms, if necessary, for the same purpose. The fact was not advertised. And during 

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