“Allus do winters. But the pickin’s is better over here at the Harbor at this time of year.”
“And the man you left in your place? Where is your house on the point?”
The hermit “for revenue only” described the hut on the eastern shore in which the other “hermit” lived. Ruth became much interested.
“Tell me,” she said, while the others examined the curios the hermit had for sale, “what kind of man is this you left in your house? And who is he?”
“Law bless ye!” said the old man. “I don’t know him from Adam’s off ox. Never seed him afore. But he was trampin’ of it; and he didn’t have much money. An’ to tell you the truth, Miss, that hutch of mine ain’t wuth much money.”
She described the man who had been playing the hermit since the Alectrion Film Corporation crowd had come to Beach Plum Point.
“That’s the fella,” said the old man, nodding.
Ruth stood aside while he waited on his customers and digested these statements regarding the man who claimed the authorship of the scenario of “Plain Mary.”
Not that Ruth would have desired to acknowledge the scenario in its present form. She felt angry every time she thought of how her plot had been mangled.
But she was glad to learn all that was known about the Beach Plum Point hermit. And she had learned one most important fact.