Adventure Magazine Cover — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

sorcery and Everhard said that he had thought that not a soul knew it but Chinamen. In order to keep up his réle of an improvi- dent fool—and perhaps to get a little more amusement out of life—he pretended to be always in debt, and occasionally dropped hints of a quarterly remittance from a grouchy relative. He swore luridly that he had nothing to do with Sin Chang’s slave market, though he did not balk at anything else the Chinaman shoved on to him A police boat had given him what he called ‘this shoulder” the night before while he was visiting certain lobster buoys out in the bay and fishing up*certain pack- ages of opium that had been anchored there from a tramp that had ostensibly put in for repairs. “Customs tightened up so you couldn’t squeeze a pipeful in a barrel of turnips. Chink fishermen used to pull it in, but police took to watching and followin’ ’em; so Jackman an’ I go out on the little Sea Breeze. near run our legs off last night. ‘““Jackman’s a nice boy. It’s up to him to swear he steals the boat and uses her without my knowledge if they don’t catch us both at once in ’er.’ “But that roll of bills?” “T was to throw it at the skipper of the tramp—help him pay repairs. I guess he was on the poop an’ heard us go by. No lights or nothing ’cept noise and splash. An’, Don, we were goin’! If the police ever got a glimpse at the size o’ that engine which claims to be ten horse-power I’d go to Alcatraz for life. “Recognize here T hey could lay ’long- side of her an’ not: know ’er as the Sea Breeze. That cabin’s collapsible. Name’s screwed on—big brass plate. We screw on another. Stick up a pole with some rags around it to make her look like she pre- tended to be a sail-boat—an’ the police aren’t searchin’ for any cabin cruiser. They’re pokin’ into ever’thing on the bay from Sacramento down that’s got poles on her—lookin’ for that big engine, you know. “Old chap, when we get to goin’ there isn’t anything in the water but the pro- peller. Take you out some night an’ make a smuggler out o’ you. A great life, Don. Beats poker. An’ if they ever catch me, what judge ‘Il believe it—me, with a * monocle an’ a dainty little cane’s head in my mouth?” Before the morning was over Lord Bob, jf 85 social dandy and fop, having got started, told me-much of his‘life. It was interesting. He had been born in China, with a mis- sionary father, of course, and had been thoroughly instructed in Chinese that he might the better carry on missionary work during his life. As a vouth he had shown an avid interest in reforming wastrel Europeans and Ameri- cans, or so his father had been induced to think; and eventually an American crook had used Bob’s knowledge of Chinese to do some clever work for him, then carried the boy off to America. The basic advice of that exceedingly clever tutor had been: “Make ’em think you’re a fool, kid. Never be a wise guy.” And he had left no part of that advice unfollowed. ( J looking very neat and stupid, his oS hair plastered down on each side from a part squarely in the middle, his arm resting in a black silk bandage, he came in and poked his slender cane at my nose, then remarked: “Y’m goin’ introduce you to Zoronna— idiots love company. Not rivals, though. Maybe I'll only show you her picture. Don, why don’t you ever get yourself in lover It ’d humanize you.” I had been waiting for him to come out of his room. I was not by any means through with him, ready to see him go philandering with a woman who, though she might not be so cruel—though possibly was more so—as the famous Locusta, poisoner for Roman emperors, was likely to be much more dangerous than if she dealt in wicked vials and diamond powders. There was the chance that I wronged her, of course; but a woman can suffer a lot of such wronging without injustice from a care- ful man. There was an old Norse proverb that appealed to my fancy. It ran some- thing like this— “Believe any man thine enemy until his blade is red with thy foeman’s blood; but trust no woman, ever.” “Look what you did to the rug with your note-book,” he said, sweeping his cane at the water-spot made when he over- turned the basin. “Persian rug, too. Im- ported—from Ohio. “Well, Mr. Remy Cantello will never again get a report of a lean man in a shabby CEORIC OOO <Si WHEN Lord Bob was dressed, (S©)