Excerpt from Don Balasco of Key West: A Novel But this nonchalance vanishes shortly before nine o'clock; then Tom Mastic is alert and on duty. As he takes the train for Port Tampa, en route for Key West, his ferret eyes gleam with a quick and sly twinkle his movements, which have been like those of a locomotive slowly getting' un der way, now become as rapid, vigorous, and direct as those of an express hundred-ton engine under full head of steam. As he boards the train, both eyes and ears grow very wide open to things happening near him, for Mr. Mastic's maxim is, You never know when you may drop on the um expected It is in this view that he throws his eyes around the railroad carriage, taking rapid note of the people about him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.