Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/77

58 "Yes, suh." The boy threw open the door of a narrow cell, at the farther end of which a solitary window admitted the well-known Florida sunshine. Minot stepped over and glanced out. Where the gay courtyard with its green palms waving, its fountain tinkling? Not visible from 389. Instead Minot saw a narrow street, its ancient cobblestones partly obscured by flourishing grass, and bordered by quaint, top-heavy Spanish houses, their plaster walls a hundred colors from the indignities of the years.

"We seem to have strayed over into Spain," he remarked.

The bell-boy giggled.

"Yes, suh. We one block and a half from de hotel office."

"I didn't notice any taxis in the corridors," smiled Minot. "Here—wait a minute." He tossed the boy a coin. "Your fare back home. If you get stranded on the way, telegraph."

The boy departed, and Minot continued to gaze out. Directly across from his window, looking strangely out of place in that dead and buried street, stood a great stone house that bore