Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/88

72 He had a market basket on his arm. His face was a stranger to razors; his hair to shears. He re minded Mr. Magee of the celebrated doctor who came every year to the small town of his boyhood, there to sell a wonderful healing herb to the crowds on the street corner.

Magee dived hastily back under the covers. "Well?" he questioned.

"So you're the fellow," remarked the little man in awe. He placed the basket on the floor; it ap peared to be filled with bromidic groceries, such as the most subdued householder carries home.

"Which fellow?" asked Mr. Magee.

The fellow Elijah Quimby told me about," ex plained he of the long brown locks. "The fellow that's come up to Baldpate Inn to be alone with his thoughts."

"You're one of the villagers, I take it," guessed Mr. Magee.

"You're dead wrong. I'm no villager. My in- stincts are all in the other direction—away from the crowd. I live up near the top of Baldpate, in a little shack I built myself. My name's Peters— Jake Peters—in the winter. But in the summer,