He put down the suitcase once more.

“Oh, my soul!” he exclaimed, and not far away, close at hand, the word “soul” was repeated.

“Oh, dear!” cried Galusha, startled.

“Dear!” repeated the echo, for it was an echo.

Galusha, brandishing the tiny flashlight, moved toward the sound.  Something bulky, huge, loomed in the blackness, a building.  The flashlight’s circle, growing dimmer now for the battery was almost exhausted, disclosed steps and a broad piazza.  Mr. Bangs climbed the steps, crossed the piazza, the boards of which creaked beneath him.  There were doors, but they were shut tight; there were windows, but they were shuttered.  Down the length of the long piazza tramped Galusha, his heart sinking.  Every window was shuttered, every door was boarded up.  Evidently this place, whatever it was, was closed.  It was uninhabited.

He came back to the front door again.  Over it was a sign, he had not looked as high before.  Now he raised the dimming flashlight and read: 

“The Restabit inn.  Open June 15 to September 15.”

September 15!!!  Why, September was past and gone.  This was the 3rd of October.  The Restabit Inn was closed for the season.

Slowly, Galusha, tugging the suitcase, stumbled to the edge of the piazza.  There he collapsed, rather than sat down, upon the upper step.  Above him, upon the piazza roof, the rain descended heavily.  The flashlight dimmed and went out altogether.

“Ow—­ooo—–­ooo—­ooo—­ooo!!” whooped the foghorn.

Later, just how much later he never knew exactly, Mr. Bangs awoke from his faint or collapse or doze, whichever it may have been, to hear some one calling his name.

“Loosh!  Loosh!  Loosh!”

This was odd, very odd.  “Loosh” was what he had been called at college.  That is, some of the fellows had called him that, those he liked best.  The others had even more offensive nicknames.  He disliked “Loosh” very much, but he answered to it—­then.

“Loosh!  Loosh!  Loosh, where are you?”

Queer that any one should be calling him “Loosh”—­any one down here in . . .  Eh?  Where was he?  He couldn’t remember much except that he was very tired—­except—­

“Loosh!  Looshy!  Come Looshy!”

He staggered to his feet and, leaving the suitcase where it was, stumbled away in the direction of the voice.  The rain, pouring down upon him, served to bring him back a little nearer to reality.  Wasn’t that a light over there, that bright yellow spot in the fog?

It was a light, a lighted doorway, with a human figure standing in it.  The figure of a woman, a woman in a dark dress and a white apron.  It must be she who was calling him.  Yes, she was calling him again.

“Loosh!  Loosh!  Looshy!  Oh, my sakes alive!  Why don’t you come?”

Mr. Bangs bumped into something.  It was a gate in a picket fence and the gate swung open.  He staggered up the path on the other side of that gate, the path which led to the doorway where the woman was standing.