Judge — September 11, 1920 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

wx almost ed! Ferret heard voices, human and hispid—hairy voices, as of menlike folk “I'm through with her now!” Ferret held his breath with both hands. In- his terror he could hear himself winking. “Can't we pack her in the green box? We can take off her head and her legs, you know We can get rid of her easily enough. Jenks will take her off our hands.” Something was moved. Ferret also was moved. Great gulps of ghastliness gorged him He had seen a woman's head—with plaid hair! It disappeared The sickening screeching of a horrified hammering and then Ferret, pop: at his peep-hole, knew they were taking a eyed box aw is Terrible is the adult Albino when fully aroused. You must know that, girls, if you have any experience whatever. Ferret left his room likea Nemesis, or any other tropical insect n the dictionary, ready to sting—or, more likely, to be stung. In haste he descended the s| that was easy for a detective who was used to taking quick steps to capture criminals, es- pecially when those steps led downward into a irs, But narrow hallway odorous of oilcloth and Italians At the door he was just in time to see, and in fact did see—or. to put it simply, he saw— with those wonderful pink eyes of his—a large green box being loaded on a dray. The dray drove off—there was nowhere else to drive. Ferret followed it—with his eyes. With his feet he dared not, for in his excitement he had forgotten to remove his socks and shoes, and—just his luck !—the sidewalk had just been freshly repapered CHAPTER III The Dreadful Dray ‘OINCIDENCE—what a help it is to writers of detective stories! Without it the most thrilling yarn would seem really true—and then who would care to read it? All those in favor will please say “I! Contrary-minded—you see? I am right. I am always right, except when arguing with my wife. (A voice. “And then you are always left, too!) Well, that same afternoon, Ferret, picnick- ing on the Bowery, saw. loafing in front of the shop of one Jenks, a dealer in second- and third-hand everythings, a dray. And on it was a green box. As no one was guarding it, Ferret jumped into the dray and tore open the cover of that box. Inside was—what did you expect, Eva? A boiled giraffe? No. Sticking out of a w of excelsior, like a Honey Dew melon in the corner of a carpenter’s shop, was a female head a head with bright plaid hair. And Dainty De Jijjiji had plaid hair! ‘That's why they had called her Dainty, But Ferret did not gaze long. He closed the lid of Drwen by S. Dexevanre As some EXPECT TO GET THERE that box to give more seclusion to a peculiarly strenuous smell. It was like a soap-and-glue factory, working double shifts, in August. CHAPTER IV A Walk up the Avenue RAGGING the dead weight—and_ only Ferret, luckily, knew how dead it was, he was dead sure—of a box like that, a green box from the Bowery to Grant's Tomb, was no child’s dream of a star. Up Fifth Avenue he could occasionally catch hold of the rear of a sea-going truck and get a tow for a few blocks but in Central Park, and especially along Rotten Row, he was mostly alone, hesadly reflected, with the lady who had once been Dainty De Jijjiji Why, then, did he not take a taxi?—or, still better, let a taxi.take him? The answer is simple. Ferret not only hadn't any dollars to spend, he didn’t even have common cents Up Riverside Drive the going was faster From time to time he bor fluent infant’s scooter or toy wagon and got quite a few blocks away with the green box before the Danish nursegirl caught him. Once or twice a policegentleman chased him and he made very good time indeed. But when at last he reached the De Jijjiji mansion he was almost two days behind his schedule. wed some CHAPTER \ Home at L [15 4 proudsome Albino that rang that front door bell. And when he had drarged the green box into the drawing-room and placed it on the very grand piano, he gazed at Mrs. Zalinsky K. De Jijjiji with all his teeth twinkling, especially the four brass incisors. “T have found your daughter!” he uttered. “Lhave brought her home. Dainty De Jijjiji is in that box!” The Albinodetective struck a pose resembling Washington Crossing the Hard ware. Mrs. De J. hesitated. “That's funny!” she remarked. “Funny! Wait till you see her and you won't think so.”” “I mean I don’t exactly see how she has had time to——"" But at that moment Dainty herself entered the room. “What's that? Iam in that box? It seems very improbable. I don’t believe it rly she opened the cover. She stared “Why, that can’t be me!” she declared, “I've been over at Fort Lee for a week acting in comedies for the movings. I'd be there vet, only they made me sit in a one-piece on a dock with a he-lobster biting cach of my tocs while a cut-up plastered my face with flypaper. Why, the ide I don’t use that perfume at all; and I've never lived in a trunk in all my life. And besides. I have a mole on my chin— you can see for yourself.”