Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/71

Rh long to see one. Let us go to your room, by all means."

Mr. Bland sulkily stalked to his mattress and secured a gaily colored bed quilt, which he wound about his thin form.

"This is positively the last experience meeting I attend to-night," he growled.

They ascended to number seven. Mr. Magee piled fresh logs on the fire; Mr. Bland saw to it that the door was not tightly closed. The pro fessor removed, along with other impedimenta, his ear tabs, which were connected by a rubber cord. He waved them like frisky detached ears before him.

"An old man's weakness," he remarked. "Fool ish, they may seem to you. But I assure you I found them useful companions in climbing Bald- pate Mountain at this hour."

He sat down in the largest chair suite seven owned, and from its depths smiled benignly at the two young men.

"But I am not here to apologize for my apparel, am I? Hardly. You are saying to yourselves