Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/233

Rh "Perhaps you will go and leave me to my baking."

"One minute," objected Mr. Magee. "You spoke of one lie—your masterpiece. We must hear about that.

"Yes—spin the yarn, pal," requested Mr. Max.

"Well," said the hermit reluctantly, "if you're quite comfortable—it ain't very short."

"Please," beamed Miss Norton.

With a sigh the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain sank upon a most unsocial seat and drew his purple splendor close.

"It was like this," he began. "Five years ago I worked for a fruit company, and business sent me sliding along the edges of strange seas and picture-book lands. I met little brown men, and listened to the soft swish of the banana growing, and had an orchestra seat at a revolution or two. Don't look for a magazine story about over thrown tyrants, or anything like that. It's just a quiet little lie I'm speaking of, told on a quiet little afternoon, by the sands of a sea as blue as Baldpate Inn must have been this morning when I didn't show up with breakfast.