Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/175

Rh to bust inside him, and he wanted to stretch out his arms and hug this guy.

"'Mark Dennen,' shouts Sam, 'as I live. Of Readsboro, Vermont. The kid I used to play with under the arc lights—don't you remember me?'

"But Sam says the guy just looked him straight in the eye, and shut his jaw, and says: 'I suppose you ll be asking after my brother George next?'

"You ain't got any brother George, you idiot,' laughs Sam. He told me he was thinking how he'd treat his old friend Mark to a dinner that would go down in history in Readsboro. 'Mark, you old rascal,' he says, 'don't you remember me —don't you remember little Sam Burns that used to play andy-over with you, and that stole your girl in 1892? Don't you remember the old days in Readsboro?' He was all het up by this time, Sam tells me, and all the old memories came creeping back, and he kept thinking he never was so glad to run across anybody in his life. 'You remember little Sam Burns, don't you? he asks once more.' But this guy just looks back into Sam's eye, with his own cold as steel, and he says, says he: 'You're pretty clever, mister, but you don't fool