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Rh gee's apartments and of the head of the stairs. With his yellow teeth he viciously bit the end from the cigar. "Don t let me interrupt the con versation, gentlemen," he pleaded.

"We were speaking," said the professor calm- ly, "of the versification of Chaucer. Mr. Ma- gee—"

He continued his discussion in an even voice. Mr. Magee leaned back in his chair and smiled in a pleased way at the settings of the stage: Mr. Max in a cloud of smoke on guard at his door; the mayor and Mr. Bland keeping vigil by a telephone switchboard in the office below, watching for the flash of light that should tell them some one in the outside world wanted to speak to Baldpate Inn; a mysterious figure who flitted about in the dark; a beautiful girl who was going to ask Mr. Magee to do her a service, blindly trusting her.

The professor droned on monotonously. Once Mr. Magee interrupted to engage Lou Max in spirited conversation. For, through the squares of light outside the windows, he had seen the gir of the station pass hurriedly down the balcony, the snowflakes falling white on her yellow hair.