Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/307

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TABLE TALK
287

he experiments, the love of his kind in his eyes, a desire to help in his heart And then—the golden moment—the great moment in that quiet dreary cell—the moment of the discovery. A serum, a formula—what not. He gives it to the world, and a few of the sick are well again, and a few of the sorrowful are glad. Romance means neither youth nor power to me. It means—service."

He bent his dim old eyes on his food, and Mr. Magee gazed at him with a new wonder. Odd sentiments these from an old man who robbed fireplaces, held up hermits, and engaged in midnight conferences by the annex door. More than ever Magee was baffled, enthralled, amused. Now Mr. Max leered about the table and contributed his unsavory bit.

"Funny, ain't it," he remarked, "the different things the same word means to a bunch of folks. Say romance to me, and I don't see no dim laboratory. I don't see nothing dim. I see the brightest lights in the world, and the best food, and somebody, maybe, dancing the latest freak dance in between the tables. And an orchestra playing in the distance—classy dames all about—a taxi