THE DREAM

The clerk of the leading hotel in Seattle whirled his register about as a man deposited a weather-beaten war-bag on the marble floor and leaned over the counter to inquire: 

“Is Murray O’Neil here?”

This question had been asked repeatedly within the last two hours, but heretofore by people totally different in appearance from the one who spoke now.  The man behind the desk measured the stranger with a suspicious eye before answering.  He saw a ragged, loose-hung, fat person of melancholy countenance, who was booted to the knee and chewing gum.

“Mr. O’Neil keeps a room here by the year,” he replied, guardedly.

“Show me up!” said the new-comer as if advancing a challenge.

A smart reply was on the lips of the clerk, but something in the other’s manner discouraged flippancy.

“You are a friend of Mr. O’Neil’s?” he asked, politely.

“Friend?  Um-m, no!  I’m just him when he ain’t around.”  In a loud tone he inquired of the girl at the news-stand, “Have you got any wintergreen

“Mr. O’Neil is not here.”

The fat man stared at his informant accusingly, “Ain’t this the fifteenth?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Then he’s here, all right!”

“Mr. O’Neil is not in,” the clerk repeated, gazing fixedly over Mr. Slater’s left shoulder.

“Well, I guess his room will do for me.  I ain’t particular.”

“His room is occupied at present.  If you care to wait you will find—­”

Precisely what it was that he was to find Tom never learned, for at that moment the breath was driven out of his lungs by a tremendous whack, and he turned to behold Dr. Stanley Gray towering over him, an expansive smile upon his face.

“Look out!” Slater coughed, and seized his Adam’s apple.  “You made me swallow my cud.”  The two shook hands warmly.

“We’ve been expecting you, Tom,” said the Doctor.  “We’re all here except Parker, and he wired he’d arrive to-morrow,”

“Where’s Murray?”

“He’s around somewhere.”

Slater turned a resentful, smoldering gaze upon the hotel clerk, and looked about him for a chair with a detachable leg, but the object of his regard disappeared abruptly behind the key-rack.

“This rat-brained party said he hadn’t come.”

“He arrived this morning, but we’ve barely seen him.”

“I left Appleton in Juneau.  He’ll be down on the next boat.”

“Appleton?  Who’s he?” Dr. Gray inquired.

“Oh, he’s a new member of the order—­initiated last month.  He’s learning to be a sleep-hater, like the rest of us.  He’s recording the right-of-way.”

“What’s in the air?  None of us know.  We didn’t even know Murray’s whereabouts—­thought he was in Kyak, until he sounded the tocsin from New York.  The other boys have quit their jobs and I’ve sold my practice.”

“It’s a railroad!”