chunk: McGee gets no work done, instead being drawn into the hijinks of the other visitors. He eventually foils a plot by the crooks to steal money from the hotel safe that is earmarked for a city street railroad deal, and he falls in love with the reporter. He observes derisively that all of these complicated incidents and characters are ones that he has written over and over again. Just before midnight, he finds out that everyone is an actor hired to perpetrate a hoax, orchestrated by McGee's friend to keep him from completing the story.
  In the epilogue, the inn is empty, and a typewriter is clattering upstairs: McGee has finished his story before midnight and won the bet. He reveals that nothing had happened during the 24 hours; all the preceding melodrama, including the actors and hoax, constitute the story.