Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/113

Rh humour, and at the same time gained a pretty comprehensive birds-eye-view of the valley's history and present status. Of county politics he learned from Dan Mitchell, the shirt-sleeved, tobacco chewing, fat, sleepy-eyed, cynical editor of the Weekly Trumpet. He even added Chinatown to his collection after a time, thrusting his head in at strange doors and shouting a cheery greeting to grave celestials with red buttoned caps. He perched for minutes at a time on the edge of Gin Gwee's counter watching the laundry boys blowing fine sprays from their mouths. On all the length of Main Street was not one shop, laundry, bank or office—on the ground floor—with whose interior he was not more or less familiar.

The occupant of one office eluded him for long enough to arouse his interest. It was a very small office, hardly more than a cubby hole, obviously boarded off from another and much larger establishment. Looking through the window Boyd saw a cheap golden-oak roll-top desk, one very second hand swivel chair, another chair that looked much as though its intended objective had been the kitchen. The other furnishings consisted of lithographed advertising calendars, and one or two of those framed chromos of impossibly steady steamships cutting through tossing seas in which wallowed relatively minute rival craft. The gilded letters on the window conveyed the information that this was the business abode of Ephraim Spinner who sold and rented real estate, wrote insurance of all types, did stenography and typewriting, and held the office of notary public. Boyd for some time failed to catch a glimpse of Ephraim. The desk continued closed, the door locked, and on the knob hung a neatly lettered card that read: Back in ten minutes. It did not state which ten minutes.

In his idleness of mind Boyd used to peer in through the window as he passed and speculate on the personality and habits of Mr. Ephraim Spinner. He made a number of deductions. The place was always neat and picked up, which, of course might argue that it was never used. But dust failed to accumulate, and the swivel chair stood at several angles. Spinner, in the final analysis, Boyd decided must be either a very young man or a rather old one, a very busy man or a very lazy