"Miss Gaines," he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your
intelligence an injustice--Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the
astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he
added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you
know--almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you
mind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in on it,
eh?"
"Because we knew it _was_ the real thing," Alicia replied,
truthfully.
"Do you know,"--The Author was plainly pleased--"that that is one of
the very nicest things that's ever been said to me? Because I really
_do_ know above a bit about genuine stuff."
"It must be a great relief to you to hear something pleasant about
yourself that is also something true," I said with sympathy. The
Author grinned like a hyena, and Alicia giggled. "Because you must
be bored to extinction, having to listen to all sorts of people
ascribe to you all sorts of virtues that no one man could possibly
possess and remain human." I was remembering some of the fulsome
flubdub I'd read about him.
"Hark to her!" grinned The Author. "What! you don't believe all the
nice things you've read about me?"
"I do not.
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