Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/66

 reality gives to the alert romantic mind. So to speak.

The office was as commonplace and average as Babbing’s conventional business clothes. There was nothing on the walls but some framed photographs of office groups. There was no furniture but the desk and the chairs. There was nothing on the desk but telephone instruments, pens and ink, paper-weights, and some shallow wire baskets that were filled with letters, telegrams and typewritten reports. There was, in fact, nothing interesting in the room but Babbing; and Babbing looked as uninteresting and ordinary as the room.

His letters had been opened for him, the pages flattened out, and the envelopes attached to them with paper-clips. His right hand reached a sheet from a wire basket at one side of the desk, and put it on the blotter before him; his left hand held it a moment for his eyes to read it, and then carried it to one of the baskets on the other side of the desk and dropped it automatically in its proper place;