The door of the hermit's abode opened before Mr. Max's masterful knock, and the bearded little man appeared on the threshold. He was clad in a purple dressing-gown that suggested some woman had picked it. Surely no man could have fallen victim to that riot of color.
"Come in," said the hermit, in a tone so colorless it called added attention to the gown. "Miss, you have the chair. You'll have to be contented with that soap-box davenport, gentlemen. Well?"
He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards—furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman's magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit's taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through another the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen.
"Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak?"
"A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee.
"We have come to plead"—began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face.
"I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out—in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up here to be alone. I can't be a hermit and a cook, too. I can't and be true to myself. No, you'll have to accept my resignation, to take effect at once."
He sat down on an uncertain chair and regarded them sorrowfully. His long well-shaped fingers clutched the cord of the purple gown.
"It isn't as though we were asking you to give up the hermit business for good," argued Magee. "It's just for a short time—maybe only for a few days. I should think you would welcome the diversion."
Mr. Peters shook his head vigorously. The brown curls waved flippantly about his shoulders.