Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/177

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A TALE OF SUSPICION
159

Wonderful. But you can't fool me,' he says, 'you can't fool Mark Dennen.

Mr. Max paused in his narrative for a moment The sound of voices came up from the office pf Baldpate Inn. One, that of the mayor, boomed loudly and angrily. In an evident desire to drown it, Mr. Max went on with spirit:

"Well, gentlemen, it got to be a point of honor, as you might say, for Sam to convince that guy. He told me he never wanted anything so much in his life as for Mark Dennen to give in. It was a hot afternoon, and he'd come aboard that boat for a rest, but he peeled off his collar and started in. He gave Mark Dennen the number of bricks in the Methodist Church, as reported in the Reads- boro Citizen at the time it was built. He told him the name of the piece Mark's sister recited at the school entertainment In the spring of 1890. He bounded on all four sides the lot where the cir- cuses played when they came to Readsboro. He named every citizen of the town, living or dead, that ever got to be known outside his own family, and he brought children into the world and mar- ried them and read the funeral service over them,