Mr. Cone stood at his desk, looking all of ten years younger for his rest at the Sanatorium. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile this smiling, affable host of the Magnolia House with the glaring maniac of homicidal tendencies who had hung over the counter of The Colonial Hotel, fingering the potato pen-wiper and hurling bitter personalities at his patrons.
The Florida hostelry had just opened and the influx of guests promised a successful season, yet there was a regret and a wistfulness in Mr. Cone's brown eyes as they scanned the register, for in the long list there was no name of any member of The Happy Family.
As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had to date refused to rent to strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons. Ordinarily, it was so well understood between them that they would return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a matter of course and they notified him only when something occurred to change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the circumstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that if they intended to return to the Magnolia House they would have so informed him.
Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and if by then he had no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the one-time pleasant relations were ended forever.
There were strangers aplenty, the "newcomers" had arrived, and Miss Mary Macpherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and Mrs. Budlong and "C. D.," and Miss Mattie Gaskett--in fact, he missed one not more than another.
What did it matter, after all, he reflected, if "Cutie" had kittens in the linen closet, and that Mrs. Appel used the hotel soap to do her laundry? As Mr. Cone looked off across the blue waters of the Gulf, which he could see through the wide open doorway, he wished with all his heart that he had not "flown off the handle."
The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to "cotton" to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before these old friends could be replaced in his affections.
He would have listened gladly to the story of how Mr. Appel got his start in life; he was hungry for the sight of Mrs. C. D. Budlong sitting like a potted oleander; he would have welcomed---Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went forward like those of a startled burro. A voice--obstinate, cantankerous--a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr. Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxi-cab driver!