Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/94

78 cheerful breakfast after. It's going to pay you a lot better than selling post-cards to romantic ladies, I promise you. I won't take you away from a work for which the world is panting with out more than making it up to you financially. Where do you stand as a coffee maker?"

"Wait till you taste it," said Peters reassur ingly. "I'll bring you up some water."

He started for the door, but Mr. Magee pre ceded him.

"The haberdasher," he explained, "sleeps be low, and he's a nervous man. He might commit the awful error of shooting the only cook on Baldpate Mountain."

Mr. Magee went out into the hall and called from the depths the figure of Bland, fully attired in his flashy garments, and looking tawdry and tired in the morning light.

"I've been up hours," he remarked. "Heard somebody knocking round the kitchen, but I ain't seen any breakfast brought in on a silver tray. My inside feels like the Mammoth Cave."

Mr. Magee introduced the Hermit of Baldpate. "Pleased to meet you," said Bland. "I guess it