10 Story Book, August 1938 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

4 INTRIGUING STORIES, SPICED WITH PRETTY GIRLS! (Continued from page 2) all the other girls in constant check was al- ways hollaring, “Katisha! Where’s that girl!” or shouting for somebody to go and yank ‘her out of her room, put her back in circulation. One obedient maid sent to rout her out came back scratched and scared. Another reported hearing a strange slither- ing sound as though a giant lizard was playing tag on one of those paper screens that formed the walls of Katisha’s cubicle. But before Madame could get there to see what was up, Katisha stepped calmly out, trailing her blossom-dotted Kimono down to the shop window and took up her place with the smug smile of the cat who’d already swallowed the canary. On _ yet another occasion, she was caught with her broad face pressed through the bars of the one tiny window in her cell that gave onto the alley, and then the Madame cackled, “Haha, so that’s it! My little birdie would fly away. Not a chance, my girl, no use flapping your sleeves for wings. It’d take an eel to wriggle through those bars, my love.” Next night a maid reported that she had seen a strange man up in Katisha’s room, one who certainly hadn’t come through the door or paid for the privilege. But she couldn’t be quite sure he was human, for he moved so fast, like a wraith, behind a screen, and om looking later, the maid couldn't find hide nor hair of him. The house was searched, but no stranger un- covered in the clothes presses, baskets, big bedding closets or anywhere, so the story went around that, like the boy in the Hindu rope trick, he’d actually disappeared into thin air. Then Madame’s fury mounted to her temples and beat there like that sideshow drum, but instead of an outburst, she set a close watch on Katisha. Her erratic com- ings and goings were followed and the very next night the Madame was called upstairs ate hurry. She burst like a wild cow into Katisha’s room, leaving a wide rip in the wall screen and almost caught her with that lover who certainly hadn’t checked in at the cashier’s desk. But how on earth had this thief of love got in? The whole place was tight as a drum, with doormen and bars against any leaks in trade, even private signals from the window-shoppers to the girls were discovered and squelched. So Madame screamed for her strong-arm koyanagi, a retired wrestler who weighed about a quarter of a long ton and hence made a fearsome bouncer. “Catch that crook! You so-and-so!” she yelled. “He’s been poaching every night for a month, and that soon runs into yen.” They beat up the room and floor bedding, looked under and behind everything again, while Katisha drew the skirts of her kimono close about her hips and swung gracefully down to her post with that same satisfied smile. Madame began to shiver with super- stitious fear, for Katisha might be enter- taining one of those phantom lovers of the old samurai story books, and such unearthly devils are hard to catch and chase away, even with firecrackers. Certainly the girl was such a one who would go running after some unholy, unprofitable intercourse. She hadn’t seen a thing, only a flash of some- thing like a floating specter, for Katisha had doused her light and she couldn’t be sure what that apparition had been, all she was certain of was that it was so thin she could have stuck her finger right through it. Katisha had jumped in front of the thing and not only shielded her lover but blotted him out, yet the Madame thought she’d heard that strange sound the maid had de- scribed before, a sort of scaly scurry up the wall. For three successive midnights after that Katisha stayed put, except when a legiti- mate lover called her out, and Madame thought maybe she'd put an end to the whole eerie affair. On the fourth night, (Continued to page 6) C@ 3} A DOOKS. CGO 3