Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/393

Rh where the admiral does. They won't have me there. But once I took the admiral on a public service board with me one time when I wanted a lot of dignity and no brains pretty bad and he sort of come back by teaching me his game in the long dull hours when we had nothing to do but serve the public. The thing gets a hold on you, somehow. Let's see—now the spade—now the heart."

Kendrick leaned closer. His breath came with a noisy quickness that brought the fact of his breathing insistently to Magee's mind.

"I never knew—how it was played," he said.

Something told Mr. Magee that he ought to rise and drag Kendrick away from that table. Why? He did not know. Still, it ought to be done. But the look in Kendrick s eyes showed clearly that the proverbial wild horses could not do it then.

"Tell me how it's played," went on Kendrick, trying to be calm.

"You must be getting old," replied the mayor. "The admiral told me the young men at his club never took any interest in his game. 'Solitaire,'