Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/174

156 me,' he says to Sam, 'there ain't none of those confidence men going to get me. I'm too wise,' he says.

"I'll bet money you are," Sam tells him laugh- ing all over at the fish that was fighting to get into the net

"Yes, siree,' says the last of the Mohicans, they can't fool me. I can tell them as fur away as I can see em, and my eyesight's perfect. One of 'em comes up to me in City Hall park and tries to sell me some mining stock. I guess he ain't re- covered yet from what I said to him. I tell you, they can't fool Mark Dennen,' says the guy.

"Sam told me that at them words he just leaned back in his seat and stared at the jay and whistled under his breath. Years ago, it seemed, Sam had lived in the town of Readsboro, Vermont, and run up and down the streets with one suspender and a stone bruise, and the kid that had run with him was Mark Dennen. And Sam says he looked at this guy from the woods that was running round crying to high heaven he needed a guardian, and he sees that sure enough it was the tow-head Mark Dennen and—Sam told me—something seemed