Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/129



WONDER," Miss Norton smiled up into Mr. Magee's face, "if you ever watched the people at a summer hotel get set on their mark for the sprint through the dining-room door?"

"No," answered Magee, "but I have visited the Zoo at meal-time. They tell me it is much the same."

"A brutal comparison," said the girl. "But just the same I'm sure that the head waiter who opens the door here at Baldpate must feel much the same at the moment as the keeper who proffers the raw meat on the end of the pitchfork. He faces such a wild determined mob. The front rank is made up of hard-faced women worn out by veranda gossip. Usually some stiff old dowager crosses the tape first. I was thinking that perhaps we resembled that crowd in the eyes of Mr. Peters now."