Page:Barbour--Captain Chub.djvu/66

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48
CAPTAIN CHUB

tiny white-and-gold reception-room. As the heavy curtain fell again at the doorway after the retreating servant the visitors gazed at each other with awed surprise. Chub pretended to be fearful of trusting his weight to the slender chairs, and all three were grinning and giggling when the man appeared again, suddenly and noiselessly. Down a marble-tiled hall carpeted with narrow Oriental rugs in dull colors they were led to an elevator. When they were inside, the butler touched a button and the tiny car, white-and-gold like the reception-room, shot up past two floors and stopped, apparently of its own volition, at the third, and the boys emerged to find themselves in a great studio that evidently occupied the whole fourth floor of the house.

“Talk about your Arabian Nights!” murmured Chub in Roy’s ear.

The grating closed quietly behind them, the car disappeared and they stood looking about them in bewilderment and pleasure. So far as they could see the big apartment was empty of any persons save themselves, but they couldn’t be certain of that for there were shadowy recesses where the white light from the big skylights