The night was so fine and the wind so refreshing that I went off into dreamland again, not into actual sleeping dreams, but into something that was neither sleeping nor waking. These states that I achieved in this way were so peculiar that I found myself dwelling on them afterward. They were like the effects of a drug. In the trees that we passed I could see strange forms, all the more weird for the moonlight, which was very weak as yet,—grotesque hags and demons whose hair and beards were leaves and whose bony structures were branches. They quite moved me, as in childhood. And on the road we saw strolling lovers occasionally, arm in arm, sometimes clasped in each other’s arms, kissing, couples whom the flare of our headlights illumined with a cruel realism.
A town called Brocton was passed, a fire arch over its principal street corner bidding all and sundry to stop and consider the joys of Brocton. A town called Pomfret, sweet as trees and snug little houses could make it, had an hotel facing a principal corner, which caused us to pause and debate whether we would go on, it was so homelike. But having set our hearts, or our duty, on Erie, we felt it to be a weakness thus to pause and debate.
On and on, through Westfield, Ripley, Northeast, Harbor Creek. It was growing late. At one of these towns we saw a most charming small hotel, snuggled in trees, with rocking chairs on a veranda in front and a light in the office which suggested a kind of expectancy of the stranger. It was after midnight now and I was so sleepy that the thought of a bed was like that of heaven to a good Christian. The most colorful, the most soothing sensations were playing over my body and in my brain. I was in that halcyon state where these things were either real or not, just as you chose—so intoxicating or soothing is fresh air. Sometimes I was here, sometimes in Warsaw or Sullivan or Evansville, Indiana, thirty years before, sometimes back in New York. Occasionally a jolt had brought me to, but I was soon back again in this twilight land where all was so lovely and where I wanted to remain.
“Why should we go on into Erie?” I sighed, once we were aroused. “It’ll be hot and stuffy.”
Franklin got down and rang a bell, but no one answered. It was nearing one o’clock. Finally he came back and said, “Well, I can’t seem to rout anybody out over there. Do you want to try?”
Warm and sleepy, I climbed down.
On the porch outside were a number of comfortable chairs. In the small, clean office was a light and more chairs. It looked like an ideal abiding place.
I rang and rang and rang. The fact that I had been so drowsy made me irritable, and the fact that I could hear the bell tinkling and sputtering, but no voice replying and no step, irritated me all the more. Then I kicked for a while and then I tried beating.
Not a sound in response.
“This is one swell hotel,” I groaned irritably, and Speed, lighting a cigarette, added,