The day's cooling in."
"It's not Morgansen," announced Engelbaum. "A new man--thinnish--Oh,
yes, but an inspector. You can tell these scientific men by their
cut."
"Hope they haven't sacked old Morgansen," said the first idler.
"He's been a bit of a scandal, these three years. But he knows about
bananas more'n a banana would own to, even with a blush."
Half-way over the hill, on a packing-case in a bare veranda, sat a
man who for three months had avoided the hotel and these loungers,
and been given up by all of them (by some enviously) as a lost
friend. A woman reclined--good old novelists' word--in a sort of
deck-chair three paces away. The windows of the house stood wide,
and showed rooms within carpetless, matless, swept if not garnished,
with other packing-cases stacked about and labelled. There was even
a label on the chair in which the woman reclined: but her skirt hid
it.
When the whistle of the fruit-steamer had first sounded, out beyond
the Point, and almost before the alert young population of San Ramon
could tear down the pathway beside the bungalow's discreet garden,
she had risen with a catch of the breath, taken up a pair of
field-glasses and scanned the offing.
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