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The Keeper of the Bees

street toward the most insistent odour of bacon and coffee that he could detect.

It was while he was sitting on a high stool with his feet on a railing before a counter that the clothing he had adopted drew closely around him and he became aware that he was wearing a hip pocket that contained something that from the feel of it might have been several things; but at first shot Jamie decided that he would guess a bill book. Then it occurred to him that it might be a good thing, since one pocket had yielded a living for a day at least, to go through all of them. And so he began on the outside breast pocket of the coat in which he found a couple of cheap cigars. In the other pockets there were some bits of string and several buttons and a filthy handkerchief, the big revolver and a handful of cartridges. Then he tried the inside pockets and found a couple of letters which he decided to attend to later. Then he ran his hand in his left pants pocket and brought it away empty. And then, to finish the job, he reached around to the hip pocket and brought out the bill book. It really happened to be a bill book, and it really happened to have several bills in it, and instantly Scot caution asserted itself in Jamie’s mind. He had heard considerable about bandits and light-fingered gentlemen and taking your neighbour’s property without his knowledge or consent. On the mere knowledge that there were two or three bills that might be of reasonable denominations, he slipped the book shut and slid it back in his pocket, and