Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/178

160 and still that bonehead from the woods sat there, his mouth open, and says: 'It's beyond me how you know all that You New Yorkers are slicker then I give ye credit for. But you can't fool me. You ain't Sam Burns. Why, I went to school with him.'

"They was drawing near Coney now," went on Mr. Max, "and Sam's face was purple and he was dripping with perspiration, and rattling off Reads- boro happenings at the rate of ten a second, but that Mark Dennen he sat there and wouldn't budge from his high horse. So they came up to the pier, Sam almost weeping real tears and plead- ing like his heart would break: Mark, don't you remember that time we threw little Bill Barnaby into the swimming hole, and he couldn't swim a stroke and nearly drowned on us? and still get ting the stony face from his old pal.

"And on the pier this Dennen held out his hand to Sam, who was a physical wreck and a broken man by this time, and says: 'You sure are cute, mister. I'll have great times telling this in Reads- boro. Once you met one too smart for ye, eh? Much obliged for your company, anyhow! And