Eugene’s color rose.  “Have you saved up anything to starve on?” he asked, crisply.

“Oh, I’m not so badly off.  I’ve had a salary in an office for a year, and I had one pretty good day at the races—­”

“You’d better go back and have another,” said his step-brother.  “You don’t seem to comprehend your standing in Canaan.”

“I’m beginning to.”  Joe turned to the door.  “It’s funny, too—­in a way.  Well—­I won’t keep you any longer.  I just stopped in to say good-day—­” He paused, faltering.

“All right, all right,” Eugene said, briskly.  “And, by-the-way, I haven’t mentioned that I saw you in New York.”

“Oh, I didn’t suppose that you would.”

“And you needn’t say anything about it, I fancy.”

“I don’t think,” said Joe,—­“I don’t think that you need be afraid I’ll do that.  Good-bye.”

“Be sure to shut the door, please; it’s rather noisy with it open.  Good-bye.”  Eugene waved his hand and sank back upon the divan.

Joe went across the street to the “National House.”  The sages fell as silent as if he had been Martin Pike.  They had just had the pleasure of hearing a telephone monologue by Mr. Brown, the clerk, to which they listened intently:  “Yes.  This is Brown.  Oh—­oh, it’s Judge Pike?  Yes indeed, Judge, yes indeed, I hear you—­ha, ha!  Of course, I understand.  Yes, Judge, I heard he was in town.  No, he hasn’t been here.  Not yet, that is, Judge.  Yes, I hear.  No, I won’t, of course.  Certainly not.  I will, I will.  I hear perfectly, I understand.  Yes, sir.  Good-bye, Judge.”

Joe had begun to write his name in the register.  “My trunk is still at the station,” he said.  “I’ll give you my check to send down for it.”

“Excuse me,” said the clerk.  “We have no rooms.”

“What!” cried Joe, innocently.  “Why, I never knew more than eight people to stay here at the same time in my life.”

“We have no rooms,” repeated the clerk, curtly.

“Is there a convention here?”

“We have no rooms, I say!”

Joe looked up into the condensed eyes of Mr.
Brown.  “Oh,” he said, “I see.”

Deathly silence followed him to the door, but, as it closed behind him, he heard the outbreak of the sages like a tidal wave striking a dump-heap of tin cans.

Two hours later he descended from an evil ark of a cab at the corral attached to Beaver Beach, and followed the path through the marsh to the crumbling pier.  A red-bearded man was seated on a plank by the water edge, fishing.

“Mike,” said Joe, “have you got room for me?  Can you take me in for a few days until I find a place in town where they’ll let me stay?”

The red-bearded man rose slowly, pushed back his hat, and stared hard at the wanderer; then he uttered a howl of joy and seized the other’s hands in his and shook them wildly.