Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

t1i2 along a jump or so ahead of creditors and filled the building with their businesses, The hallways were gloomy and vaguely lighted even in the day. A pokey elevator with a club-footed pilot ran stealthily up and down, with occasional jarring clang and click of doors in the sepulchral halls. The pilot was smoking a cigaret and read- ing baseball news at the fifth floor—when he was out of sight people often walked rather than wait—as the buzzer whirred. ; He put over the lever and began drifting down to the first floor where he opened the cage to a slender, dark man of a distinctivel neat appearance. / o Robert Guinnell was deceptively youth- ful in appearance, unless closely observed. He seemed almost boyish, was always pleas- ant, his dress was fastidiously conservative, and he had vitality, energy, a quickness of movement, an impulsive graciousness of speech and manner that was likely to please strangers and charm friends. People liked him A slight, delicately adjusted mustache gave an interesting shadow to his lip. His skin was dark, quite dark, and the com- plexion was always noticed by women, who were inclined to wish for intimacy enough to ask what he used. The nose was thin and straight. He was of the type that is called aristocratic. His dark hair had a natural sheen; his feet were narrow; his hands slender, almost fragile. Manners are contagious. came polite when Guinnell asked if Mr. Kase was in. Said the elevator man: “De ole man got a stranger wit’ ‘im. A goil. He won’t be busy long. She wored aveil.. Dat means she’s got somepin’ ter sell.” Guinnell stepped into the hall and was busy with a little reference-book until the elevator drifted out of sight; then he walked past the CASPER P. KASE, LOANS, turned a corner, and glancing cautiously around, put a key into a solid door with a brass plate marked “Private.” On the other: side of the hall the dynamo of the manufacturing jeweler droned like a great tireless fly in a bottle. petless room. : a An unmade iron bed with rumpled red comforters was in one corner, an iron safe, big as half an elephant, in another. GUINNELL came into a small car- The pilot be= Adventure Not much space remained. A plain pine table with a dilapidated Morris chair beside it was under the low electric globe that had a piece of newspaper shaped to a cone for a shade. The room, was unclean, dusty and close. A narrow window overlooked the alley. The window was raised for ventilation less than two inches, and the blind was down to the sill. He. looked about uninterested, and stood rather than try to find a place where he cared to sit. With the point of his flexible cane he idly made marks in the dust that was on the black sides of the safe; but he was attracted by the raised voice of a man in the next room and went to the peep-hele | in the door beside the safe. The office of Casper P. Kase was divided by a long counter topped with glazed -glass that had two grilled windows through which the money-lender met his public. Whenever the front door opened a bell rang, and a square-built man witha square- cut gray beard; quite bald, with heavy glasses and a smoking-jacket, would shuffle inte view from the private room or from the screen behind the long counter. Kase was slow of speech and manner, heavy on his feet, and though less than nor- mal height, he had shoulders that filled a doorway. , 3 Kase had brought his customer to the table behind the screen. It was not often he did that. Guinnell could see her plainly. The veil had been lifted. Guinnell was impressionable but cautious. In his work it was needful to be wary of women. By chance he had a weakness for red hair —for real shimmering, copperish hair; but that might have attracted only fleeting admiration if it had not been even less ar- resting than her personality. Through a peep-hole fifteen feet away even a shrewd observer may not get an ac- curate impression of a personality, but the impression may be none the less appealing. Guinnell was fascinated. She was young and lovely; her eyes were’ dark, the lashes long, shadowy, silken, and though her face was very pretty it looked intelligent, vividly SO. She seemed but little embarrassed, if at all, and even people who knew Kase well were likely to be uneasy when he began to haggle. He was-saying— Go NOOK = A (C@