Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/50

34 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 electric signs were pasting lurid legends on a long suffering sky; the taxis were spraying throats with gasoline; the traffic cop at Broadway and Forty-second Street was madly earning his pay. Mr. Magee got up and walked the floor. New York!

Probably the telephone in his rooms was jang ling, 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 Bald- pate Mountain. Few knew of his departure. This was the night of that stupid attempt at theatricals at the Plaza; stupid in itself but gay, almost 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 a magazine. He won dered how they read, in the old days, by candle light. He wondered if they would have found his