Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/230

210 I don't introduce nobody to nobody. Let every man play his own game, I say,' That's New York. That's the essence of the town. 'I introduce nobody to nobody.'"

"It seems odd," remarked Mr. Magee, "to hear you speak of the time you walked on pavements."

"I haven't always been on Baldpate Mountain," replied the hermit. "Once I, too, paid taxes and wore a derby hat and sat in barbers chairs. Yes, I sat in 'em in many towns, in many corners of this little round globe. But that's all over now."

The three visitors gazed at Mr. Peters with a new interest.

"New York," said Mr. Max softly, as a better man might have spoken the name of the girl he loved. "It's a great little Christmas tree. The candles are always burning and the tinsel presents always look good to me."

The hermit's eyes strayed far away—down the mountain—and beyond.

"New York," said he, and his tone was that in which Max had said the words. "A great little Christmas tree it is, with fine presents for the reaching. Sometimes, at night here, I see it as it