Adventure Magazine Cover — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

Sir Galahad and the Badger She brought the surprize with her all right. It came in the form of a creamy kimono stained with the falling petals of intensely red roses; and she was inside of it. She had slipped it on over her dress as the other way would have taken too long. Jack gasped. His admiration was trans- parent. More than that, he exclaimed— ‘Great , but you are pretty!” ‘“‘Am I?” she asked a little wistfully, as if slightly saddened because she wasn’t sure if he were sincere. “Vou are. Wonderful! I-think you are beautiful. Honest. I can’t tell you how beautiful I think you are.” Her face was pensively downcast as she remarked: ; “What if my husband should come in an’ hear you say——”’ ~ jy “HUSBAND!” Jack felt as if a large, icy fist had : been planted in his stomach. He was really unnerved for a moment, as any man might be upon finding himself in all in- nocence turned into a sneak, a poacher, a vi- olator of family ties. Out of the largeness of his innocence he had thought it impossible for a girl to run around the streets of New York without being appropriated by some man with eyes as good as his own. She had a husband. Jack turned white and became quiet. ‘What is the matter?” she cried, really surprized. He had been agitated and nervous before. Now he was suddenly calm, nerveless, “This husband. I didn’t think—” he stammered. “Are you afraid?” There was a vague touch of contempt. “Afraid?” he repeated. ‘‘What of? No. I am not afraid.” He was looking hard at her. “No. Not of him,” he added, ‘“Why—why, boy, what is the matter?” “Matter?” he asked sardonically. ‘“Mat- ter? I’m afraid my wife may come and catch me.”’ She laughed and impulsively threw her arms about him, but he pushed her aside roughly. “Get away. Keep off. This husband fellow—why wasn’t he here to say, ‘How-de- do’ when I came? I'd like to meet him. You should—you should train him better. Make him hospitable to your friends.” 59 The woman suddenly realized that she had got this boy all wrong. It was part of the badger game to prepare the victim for the coming of the husband and have him already nervous, afraid. But Jack did not fall true to type. She would have to spin her tongue and go some to throw a scare into him, for unless the sucker is scared he may object to loosening up on his roll. Rapidly, in the breathless, confidential way that a woman has when lying des- perately, she began. Her husband was a terrible fellow. He had killed two men. He was jealous of her. He beat her. . “The lousy dog,” said young Jack Richmond, straightening up and never for a moment having a flicker of doubt at the truth of her story. “Some day he will kill me!’’ she cried. She really got interested in her own story, and spun a wild-eyed romance of which she was the unlucky heroine. She told of how she had ,been beaten up; and in this she did not need much imagina- tion. Nor did she fabricate greatly in telling of the fear for her life. But she played wildly on his sympathy: with picturesque details of her abused days. She had no friends. No one to love. No one to trust. She leaned forward affectionately, but Jack did not notice. | He was a hare-brained youngster with no discretion, and did not realize that a serpent’s fangs are more to be trusted than a strange woman’s tongue; but sheer innate honesty protected him. If she were pyr. ried he had no right to offer hef@ caress. The pious bludgeonings ancLegid blood of the Richmonds_-shewed up surprizingly at the criticatmoment. As they sat there, Jack in breathless silence, his every sense of justice aflame, and the woman breathlessly imagining abuses of her husband, there came a rough knocking on the door and a blustering voice shouted: “Here, open dis door! What’s goin’ on in me own joint?” ‘My husband!” the woman gasped, and almost fell from her chair. After a preliminary bluster and clatter on the door to intimidate the victim and prepare him for the collapse the man opened it easily enough. Any sensible man inside the room with the “wife’’ would have been comichoooks C©