Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/171



URNING to consider the never-stale fortunes of one of fate's bean bags

Mr. Billy Capper, ejected from the Hotel Splendide, took little umbrage at such treatment; it was not an uncommon experience, and, besides, a quiet triumph that would not be dampened by trifles filled his soul. Cheerfully he pushed through the motley crowd on Waterport Street down to the lower levels of the city by the Line Wall, where the roosts of sailors and warrens of quondam adventurers off all the seven seas made far more congenial atmosphere than that of the Splendide's hollow pretense. He chose a hostelry more commensurate with his slender purse than Almer's, though as a matter of fact the question of paying a hotel bill was furthest from Billy Capper's thoughts; such formal transactions he avoided whenever feasible. The proprietor 151