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The Just and the Unjust by Vaughan Kester
page 80 of 388 (20%)

"Nothing, thank you," answered the colonel in a tone of abstraction, and
he felt a sense of relief when the officials had gone their way into the
night, leaving him and his two companions to their vigil.

Now for the first time they had leisure and opportunity to look about
them. It was a poor enough place, all things considered; the furniture
was dingy with age and neglect, for Archibald McBride had kept no
servant; a worn and faded carpet covered the floor; there was an
engraving of Washington Crossing the Delaware and a few old-fashioned
woodcuts on the wall; at one side of the room was a desk, opposite it a
rusted sheet-iron stove in which Watt Harbison was already starting a
fire; there was a scant assortment of uncomfortable chairs, a table,
with one leg bandaged, and near the desk an old mahogany davenport.

"This wouldn't have suited you, eh, Colonel?" said Gilmore at last.

"He could hardly be said to live here, he merely came here to sleep,"
answered the colonel.

"No, he couldn't have cared for anything but the one thing," said
Gilmore. "Were you ever here before, Colonel?" he added.

"Never."

"I don't suppose half a dozen people in the town were ever inside his
door until to-night," said Watt Harbison, speaking for the first time.

Gilmore turned to look at the colonel's nephew as if he had only that
moment become aware of his presence. What he saw did not impress him
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