The settings

<appSettings>
    <add key="RetryAttempts" value="5" />
    <add key="ApplicationBuildDate" value="11/4/1999 6:23 AM" />
</appSettings>

The code

dynamic config = new Configuration();
var retryAttempts1 = config.RetryAttempts;                 // returns 5 as a string
var retryAttempts2 = config.RetryAttempts(10);             // returns 5 if found in config, else 10
var retryAttempts3 = config.RetryAttempts(userInput, 10);  // returns 5 if it exists in config, else userInput i