The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Garden of Eden, by Max Brand

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Title: The Garden of Eden

Author: Max Brand

Release Date: July 3, 2010 [eBook #33066]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF EDEN***

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THE GARDEN OF EDEN

by

MAX BRAND

Dodd, Mead & Company
New York

Copyright 1922 by Popular Publications, Inc.
Copyright renewed 1950 by Dorothy Faust
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher

First published in book form October, 1963

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-20473

Printed in the United States of America
by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y.

The characters, places, incidents, and situations in this book
are imaginary and have no relation to any person, place, or
actual happening.

_CHAPTER ONE_

By careful tailoring the broad shoulders of Ben Connor were made to
appear fashionably slender, and he disguised the depth of his chest by a
stoop whose model slouched along Broadway somewhere between sunset and
dawn. He wore, moreover, the first or second pair of spats that had ever
stepped off the train at Lukin Junction, a glowing Scotch tweed, and a
Panama hat of the color and weave of fine old linen. There was a
skeleton at this Feast of Fashion, however, for only tight gloves could
make the stubby fingers and broad palms of Connor presentable. At
ninety-five in the shade gloves were out of the question, so he held a
pair of yellow chamois in one hand and in the other an amber-headed
cane. This was the end of the little spur-line, and while the train
backed off down the track, staggering across the switch, Ben Connor
looked after it, leaning upon his cane just forcibly enough to feel the
flection of the wood. This was one of his attitudes of elegance, and
when the train was out of sight, and only the puffs of white vapor
rolled around the shoulder of the hill, he turned to lo