Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/97

 to the unexpected through habitual surprise. It showed markedly in his eyes, which were bright and quite wide open, and, save for his eyes, no feature about him would fix itself in the memory. His round, pleasant face, his heavy brown mustache, the medium build that concealed under its commonplace symmetry an unusual strength, his slightly rounding shoulders bespeaking a not too serious estimate of himself—every characteristic, even to his unobtrusive suit and black hat, made him distinctly an ordinary man—one to be met in the street to-day and passed, and forgotten to-morrow.

He was laughing under Bucks’s scrutiny when he handed the message back. “Why, I don’t know a thing about it, not a thing; but taking a long shot and speaking by and far, I should say it looks something like first blood for Sinclair,” he suggested, and to change the subject lifted his cup of coffee.

“Then it looks like you for the mountains to-night instead of for Weber and Fields’s,” retorted Bucks, reaching for a cigar. “Brown, why have you never learned to smoke?” 75