Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/215

Rh "May I help with the coffee?" asked Miss Thornhill.

"Only to drink it," replied the girl of the station. "It's all made now, you see."

As if in proof of this, Mrs. Norton appeared in the dining-room door with a tray, and simultaneously opened an endless monologue:

"I don't know what you men will say to this, I'm sure—nothing in the house but some coffee and a few crackers—not even any canned soup, and I thought from the way things went yesterday he had ten thousand cans of it at the very least—but men are all alike—what name did you say? oh yes, Miss Thornhill, pleased to meet you, I'm sure—excuse my not shaking hands—as I was saying, men are all alike—Norton thought if he brought home a roast on Saturday night it ought to last the week out—"

She rattled on. Unheeding her flow of talk, the hermits of Baldpate Inn swallowed the coffee she offered. When the rather unsatisfactory substitute for breakfast was consumed, Mr. Magee rose briskly.

"Now," he said, "I'm going to run up to the