and then smiled. "As like as
not," she said. "I go pretty near everywhere! What do you want?"

"Well!" Kelson soliloquized; "breakfast is what we are particularly
anxious for--but I suppose that is out of the question in a dive!"

"Then why did you come here?" the girl queried.

"Because of you! Simply because of you," Kelson replied. "You
hypnotized me!"

"That being so, then I reckon you can have your breakfast," the girl
laughed, "though we don't provide them as a rule before nine. Indeed,
the management have only just decided--this morning--on providing them
at all."

"How odd!"

"Why odd?" the girl questioned, taking off her hat and arranging her
curls before a mirror.

"Why, that I should have happened to strike the right moment! Had I
come here yesterday it would have been useless. As I said, you
hypnotized me. Evidently fate intended us to meet."

"Do you believe in fate?" the girl asked, shrugging her shoulders. "I
believe in nothing--least of all in men!"

"You say so!" Kelson observed, before he knew what he was saying. "And
yet you have just got engaged to one. But you've got a bad attack of
the pip this morning, you have had enough of it here--you want to get
another post."

The girl ceased doing her hair and eyed him in amazement. "Well!" she
said. "Of all the queer men I've ever met you are the queerest. Are
you a seer?"

"No!" Hamar observed, suddenly joining in. "He's only very hungry,
miss. Hungry body and soul! hungry all over. And so are we."

"Well, then, go into the room over there," the girl cried, pointing in
the direction of a half-open door, "and breakfast will be brought you
in half a jiffy."

"Who's that playing cards?" Curtis asked.

"How do you know any one is playing cards?" the girl queried with an
incredulous stare. "You can't see through walls, can you?"

"No! and I'm hanged if I can explain," Curtis said, "I seem to hear
them. There are two--one is called Arnold, and the other Lemon, or
some such name, and they are rehearsing certain card tricks they mean
to play to-night."

"That's right," the girl said, "two men named Arnold and Lemon are
here. They were playing all last night with two of the clerks in
Willows Bank, in Sacramento Street, and they cleared them out of every
cent. You knew it!"

"No! I didn't," Curtis growled, "I don't lie for fun, and I'm just as
much in a fog, as to how I know, as you are. Let's have breakfast now,
and we'll look up these two g