reported in the Readsboro _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 circuses 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
married them and read the funeral service over them, 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 Readsboro
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 pleading 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 getting 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 Readsboro. Once you
met one too smart for ye, eh? Much obliged for your company, anyhow!'
And he went away and left Sam leaning against the railing, with no faith
in human nature no more. 'I hope somebody got to him,' says Sam to me,
'and got to him good. He's the kind that if you work right you can sell
stock in a company for starting roof gardens on the tops of the pyramids
in Egypt. I'd trimmed him myself,' says Sam to me, 'but I hadn't the
heart.'"

Mr. Max finished, and again from below came the sound of voices raised
in anger.

"An interesting story, Mr. Max," commented Professor Bolton. "I shall
treasure it."

"Told with a remarkable feeling for detail," added Mr. Magee. "In fact,
it seems to me that only one of the two participants in it could
remember all the fine points so well. Mr. Max, you don't exactly look
like Mark Dennen to me, therefore--if you will pardon the liberty--"

"I get you," replied Max sadly. "The same old story.
Suspicion--suspicion everywhere. It does a lot of