"To be frank," criticised Bronston, "you run just a bit to extremes.
There's that cap you bought yesterday evening when we stopped at that
store on our way across town. It struck me as being--well, a trifle
loud."
"I don't see anything wrong with this cap, if you're asking me," said
Keller. He drew it forth from his opened handbag and slipped it on his
head. It slipped down until his ears stopped it; its owner whistled in
astonishment. "Yes, by gee!" he exclaimed, "there is something wrong
with it too--it's too large." He drew it off and examined the little tag
pasted in the crown. "Why, it's a full half size too large." He turned
to Bronston.
"You told the clerk what numbers we wanted. Remember, don't you,
offering to attend to that while I was getting me a bathrobe, so as to
save time? See if he made any mistake in yours?"
Bronston slid on the cap he had bought, a plain grey one; it stuck on
the top of his head.
"Yes," he said, "the idiot must have got the sizes twisted. This one is
a half size too small for me."
"And mine's a half size too large," said Keller. "I suppose we'll have
to trade."
"There's nothing else to do," said Bronston, "although I can't say I
fancy this plaid design much."
In accordance with the plan of Keller, as stated the night before, they
went to breakfast together to find that they had been assigned places
at a five-seated, circular table on the balcony of the dining saloon.
Their tablemates were an elderly couple, who said little to each other
and nothing at all to strangers, and a tall, reserved, exceedingly
silent Englishman. The indefinable something that marked these two men
as hailing from different circles and different environments was
accentuated in their table manners. Keller ate correctly enough, but
there was a suggestion of grossness about him, an awkwardness in his
fashion of holding his fork while he cut his ham. But he watched
Bronston closely, and before the end of the meal had begun to copy
Bronston's method of handling a fork.
They had quit the dining room and sought out the location of their deck
chairs when, for the first time, the detective seemed to become aware
that Bronston's cheeks were rosy and smooth, whereas a roughened stubble
covered his own jowls. "I think I'll go below and take a shave," he
said, running the palm of his hand over his chops.
"Use my safety, if you feel like it," suggested Bronston casually.
"There's a new blade in it."
Half an hour later, when Bronston invaded the stateroom to get a
pocketful of cigars, Keller stood facing the mirror, putting on his
collar and tie.
"I couldn't find my razor," he said, with his head turned away from
Bronston; "I must've left it on that Chicago train. And yet I'd have
sworn I put it into my valise. So I had to use yours. But you were wrong
when you said it had a new blade in it. If that's a new blade I'll eat
it. It mighty near pulled my upper lip off."
"Your upper lip?" echoed Bronston instantly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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