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

206 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