Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 1 (1927-01).djvu/103

 sapphires, gold, silver and carved jade—things as valueless in themselves as the stones on which we tread heedlessly every day?"

"No," was the fervent reply, "I would buy adventure, a romance such as poets sing about but which is in truth as intangible as vapor."

"You are wrong," cried Randall Crane. "Absolutely wrong! Romance is within your grasp if you but hold out your hand."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply that I am a peddler of dreams. Among my wares are dreams such as even you might treasure. If you would find romance, come with me."

To the delight of the lone waiter, now fully awake at last, Hugh rose to his feet. Randall Crane paid the bill but Hugh was not even aware that he did so. His boredom had slipped from him like a cloak, his ennui was forgotten. He did not for a single moment believe Crane, and yet there was something about his absorbed expression which left the slightest, thread of hope. Often barest possibilities are far more attractive in appearance than the most vivid actualities.

rooms of Randall Crane were just around the corner in one of a row of old-fashioned red-brick buildings with white stoops. They totally lacked personality. In fact they were just replicas of all other boarding house rooms. One look at the drab furniture was sufficient to convince Hugh that Randall Crane rented the rooms as they were and did not own a single stick in them.

Randall Crane noticed Hugh's expression.

"When one lives in dreams," he explained, "one cares very little for material things. The only thing I desire in my room is quietude to sleep." As he spoke he lighted a small pipe which lay on a table in the center of the room, and motioning Hugh toward an old couch in the corner, he continued, "Smoke this, and as you drift off into a land of delightful dreams you will forget your uninviting environment."

Hugh took the pipe, and throwing himself on the couch, he uttered a sigh of contentment. Here was an adventure sufficiently interesting to appeal. Perhaps he was unwise to accede so readily to Randall Crane's suggestion, but he did not care. Usually he was the most careful of men. Although still young, he had been an active detective for almost ten years. So ardently had he pursued his studies, he discovered the defect in everything long before he acknowledged its merit. But now all caution was thrown to the winds. For once he had decided to let himself go adventuring. As he drew on the pipe he tried to guess what it contained. It was sweet-scented as though made of flowers. And then abruptly he looked into Crane's eyes, which seemed oddly bright in the semi-darkness of the room, and instantly all reflections and problems vanished.

"You have just crossed the silent stream where the slumber shadows go," said Crane softly. "Care, worry and the material things of life are forgotten, for you are in the 'Hills of Dream' and it is spring. The flowers are blooming everywhere in the gorgeous sunlight. From the forest come pungent scents of birch and pine and fir. The forest, trails, cool and shadowy, are very attractive to you. Heeding their call you enter the woods."

Randall Crane's voice seemed to grow farther and farther away as Hugh slipped softly into sleep. And now he had a dream, and the dream was like a continuation of the voice of Randall Crane, for he was in a forest from which came "pungent scents of birch and pine and fir" and it was spring. He walked through