He blinked about him, his breath a white cloud in the cold room.
"Life, young gentlemen," he remarked, setting down his bag and leaning a green umbrella against it, "has its surprises even at sixty-two. Last night I was ensconced by my own library fire, preparing a paper on the Pagan Renaissance. To-night I am on Baldpate Mountain, with a perforation in my hat."
Mr. Bland shivered. "I'm going back to bed," he said in disgust.
"First," went on the gentleman with the perforated derby, "permit me to introduce myself. I am Professor Thaddeus Bolton, and I hold the Chair of Comparative Literature in a big eastern university."
Mr. Magee took the mittened hand of the professor.
"Glad to see you, I'm sure," he said. "My name is Magee. This is Mr. Bland—he is impetuous but estimable. I trust you will forgive his first salute. What's a bullet among gentlemen? It seems to me that as explanations may be lengthy and this room is very cold, we would do well to go up to my room, where there is a fire."
"Delighted," cried the old man. "A fire. I long to see one. Let us go to your room, by all means."
Mr. Bland sulkily stalked to his mattress and secured a gaily colored bed quilt, which he wound about his thin form.
"This is positively the last experience meeting I attend to-night," he growled.
They ascended to number seven. Mr. Magee piled fresh logs on the fire; Mr. Bland saw to it that the door was not tightly closed. The professor removed, along with other impedimenta, his ear tabs, which were connected by a rubber cord. He waved them like frisky detached ears before him.