Judge — January 16, 1915 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PBS oe HIS FIRST HAIRCUT No longer to be a“ girl." THE DESPERATE CHARACTER Ry TOM P. MORGAN 466] MET a desperate character the other day,"’ related the landlord of the Pe- tunia tavern. ‘‘I went over to the depot to see about a drummer's trunk tha: had failed to arrive till after the salesman had gone on his way rejoicing, and encountered this yere abandoned person setting on a baggage truck in the shade. Simultaneously considered, he was a scanty party about forty years old, with arid whiskers scuttling vacantly around on a countenance as docile as that of a pet lamb. My first estimation was that there wasn't a trace of harm in seventy gallons of him, but when I approached him he spat through his front teeth just like a kid and looked as pleased as the same kid does when he achieves that destination. Some might think I ort to have been in the hotel busi- ness long enough to lea.a something, but with the most of us there ain't no such length of time. When I asked him if he wanted to go to a first-class hotel, that was business; but when I lingered after he had notified me that he didn’t, it was foolishness. ““*No, sir!’ he answered. ‘But waiting for a train is infernal slow business for an agile man. My name is Tandy—Luther W. Tandy—and I'd be real glad if you'd join me in an outburst.’ ““*In a which?" says I, just like that. “*In a few bottles of sody pop, by thun- der!’ he snapped defiantly. ‘I used to live over beyond Good Intent, but I've left home and I'm out for a buster!" “You never can tell about ’em! Prob- ably the proper study of mankind is man, as the feller said, but I find that the more vividly I perooze the subject, the less 1 know about it. There ain't any such thing asa good judge of human nature outside of the detective stories. I never aim to hunt trou- ble, so I slid along down the street and sopped a pop or two with Mr. Tandy, think- ing I'd get loose after it. But, no; he talked as if he suspected me of being a moral leper, and hinted that he would like to con- nect up with a poker game and such as that. You never saw a body more set on going to the dogs than he was. He looked as mild as a cold-storage chicken, but he continued to spit through his teeth like a regular devil and tell that he was going to the city to buy wine for actresses and commit similar outrages that-a-way. I'm a slave no longer!’ says he, plumb OLD HOME pizonous. ‘I have defied the tyrant and am free!" “All I said for the moment was to re- spectfully suggest that we go over and set on the veranda for a spell. ““*Well, why did you leave your wife?’ I asked, sorter ly, after we had done so. “*Why, Alfretta told me to go and never come back! Somehow, I don't exactly know why, the gate fell down and killed a little lame chicken that she had been mothering, and she just up and told me togo. And, by Judas, I went! No man with red blood in his veins would take that from any woman!" “T didn’t say anything, and he lapsed into a sort of neutral state, as if he was thinking about the riot he was’ going to in- dulge in. ‘Bime-by he added, ‘I rode to town with the Butler boy; the one that stut- ters, I believe it was, though I guess I didn’t WEEK ABROAD comicbooks.com