Judge — July 24, 1920 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

aN July 24, 1920 Drawn by Custnt Suiva HE severed head fell with a soft thud, the sound deadened by the thick Shiraz rug, whose patter, telling some Persian tale of love and death, was like tracings of black- drying blood. Into the ominous shadows beneath the great oak table it rolled, its progress over the red-splashed rug from the crepuscular light of the room to the gloom of its dismal hid- ing place, was like the transition of the woman who stood watching it, fascinated, transfixed, lips parted, the hand that held the knife ar- rested, benumbed and posed with the cruel blade pointing. . The woman gasped hysterically, as she gently and very quictly laid the glistening weapen where the rose-glow from a lamp shimmered and played heartlessly on the moist black of the table covering. She had always disliked this sombre room its chiaroscuro a whim of his—where even im- pulses and desires had been obscurcd by the gloom. Good things were lost so casily in this Stygian place; clear and distinct motives eclipsed! It was, oh! so difficult to find things here—tangible things or purposes of the heart. The body of the man in the chair, its leather slithering and insecure, had slumped gro- tesquely sidewise so that one shoulder was directly over the shadow where she knew lay Derision Long and loudly laughed the maiden No, *ve man had not tried to arouse her risibilivcs All he had done was to ask her to work in his factory, but he had offered her only $100 a week. His Fiancte Fux Oxe Vore He Cay Couxt Ox In the Shadows By Janes Hexny Tuompsos the severed head in its shivering halo of tricky luminosity. There was a spasmodic twitching of the man’s hand, a flaccid hand, as the white shirt- front, all red where the ruby rays from the lamp were repulsed by its dolcrous surface, slid partly within the shadow, and the glint from a barbarous diamond stud, like the eye of the basilisk, was dimmed. And she knew that the head lay just under- neath the man’s shoulder slumping so im potently from the arm of the chair! She could not bring herself to touch that! She wrested her mesmerized cyes from the place where she knew the head to be, to peer at the malevolent clock ticking relentlessly like an upended coffin. ‘The body in the chair, pulled by gravity, slid further down without noise, offering no aid A long, wailing, strident warming of an auto- mobile horn, the slam of a car door, then a rush of hurrying feet toward the house, gal- vanized the woman into action. She looked, half involuntarily, under the table for a shuddering moment, as though she considered replacing the head whence it came ‘The footsteps sounded nearer the door. The woman moved quickly nearer the table, and snatched from beside the knife a gleaming [oem ne His Direction Willis—What house are you traveling for now? Gillis—1 don’t know. Sometimes when I get the bills for the month I think I’m traveling for the bug-house. 29 thread of steel. She reached the figure in the chair with ene stride just as an imperative ring sounded at the door bell. “Hubert!” cried the woman. help me! “Wake and The jangling doorbell sent another command through the heavy-hanging shadows. “They are here!” half sobbed the woman The body in the chair stirred. She shook it again and again with increasing impatience. “Oh, dear!” she resorted to futile exclama- tion The figure in the chair was moving again, this time up instead of downt Then her words were unleashed in a rush: “Tused the kitchen carver, and because the room was so dark I scratched the varnish of the table!” There were self-ridicule and fear inter: mingled in the woman’s hysteric laughter. “TZ tried to cut off the stems and I cut off the dof my violet pin and [ haven't another, and... Hubert shuffled toward the door, yawning, to admit the friends who had come to make a thea- ter party. He grumbled as a man does when he has been awakened from a nap. “Aw, use a pty pin!” feclingly. he advised un- Cramping His Style Jones was talking to a cartoonist. “Why haven't your comics. been funny lately?” he asked. The cartoonist sighed. “My wife,” said he, “has mislaid my scrap book.”