Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/226

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SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE

He stood facing them in the middle of his hermitage. With curious eyes they examined its architecture. Exiled hands had built it of poles and clay and a reliable brand of roofing. In the largest room, where they sat, were chairs, a table, and a book-shelf hammered together from stray boards—furniture midway between that in a hut on a desert isle and that of a home made happy from the back pages of a woman s magazine. On the wall were various posters that defined the hermit s taste in art as inflammatory, bold, arresting. Through one door at the rear they caught a glimpse of a tiny kitchen; through an other the white covering of a hall-room cot could be seen.

"Well?" repeated Mr. Peters. "I suppose you're a delegation, so to speak ?"

"A cold unfeeling word," objected Mr. Magee.

"We have come to plead"—began Miss Norton, turning her eyes at their full candle-power on the hermit's bearded face.

"I beg pardon, miss," interrupted Mr. Peters, "but it ain't any use. I've thought it all out—in the night watches, as the poet says. I came up