Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

Sorcery and Everhard was 6n the table beside him, a long, mono- gramed cigaret between his dainty fingers; and some French magazines were scattered about. He placed his monocle, took his feet from the hasgock; and, glancing at me from shoes to collar, said plaintively—. ‘“‘Aren’t you ever going t’ get a new suit?” He had, or pretended to have, an aver- sion to my wearing dark cloth. Lord Bob, except occasionally with women, appeared to be serious, in earnest. He did not get out of the chair. He did not advance a hand. ‘““Where’s your luggage?”’ I told him a burglar had taken it. He stared at me as if incredulously thinking the matter over, then rather loudly, emphat- ically, said— ‘‘Jackman— Jackman?” “Ves, sir.”’ “There might be an idea for us in that, Jackman. What could we have stolen? You will of course leave the windows open. We need fresh-air. But lock the doors. There must be no carelessness on our part. Sit down, Mr.— Mr.— What the your name?”’ He began fumbling in his pockets and calling on Jackman to bring him the last telegram. The efficient Jackman picked it from a writing-desk, and Lord Bob glanced at the signature. = “Oh, Mr. Richards. Sit down, Don.. That’s all, Jackman. Go think of some- thing we could have stolen.”’ All that idiotic nonsense was what one had to accept with Lord Bob. Under the guise of a fool he was an inordinate jester. He seemec never quite to come out of his pose, if indeed it was a pose; and there was a sort of erratic method in his idiocy. Briefly, Lord Bob was having trouble with his landlord. The unconscionable rascal would not renew the lease unless the six months’ arrears were paid; and Lord Bob was very much concerned in finding some excuse that would, as he put it, appease the “‘rapacity of the rascal” for a time. Jackman, who he said was not wholly un- familiar—as I might have suspected—with the art of plumbing, had tampered with some bathroom pipes so there had been a small flood; and Lord Bob had used that as an excuse for being indignant with the land- lord. Such a house—a man might be drowned in his bed! He would sue far damages and mental discomfort. By Saint o/ Solomon, he would move. No, the land- Jord wouldn’t let him move—not until the arrears were settled. That had made Lord Bob very well con- tented with the arrangement; but now the avaricious landlord was changing his mind and suggesting that Lord Bob get out, inti- mating that it was better to Jose six months’ rent than eighteen. He wound up by tell- ing me that if I did not want to be disturbed by the herrid noise of a landlord’s voice I had better lend him a certain sum of money, running into the hundreds. He would give me his note. Yes, gladly. Oh, indeed, he would be delighted. Either I must do that or suggest something that would touch the stony heart of that “‘ra- pacious rascal.” I had disposed of my money in such a way that I could draw against it as Mr. Richards, so I gave him a check. ~The next day he split the check between a tailor and a jeweler —the former to pay something on an ac- count, the latter to purchase a trinket for the woman known to the sensation-loving public as the most wicked in the world, Zoronna Symondi. “Zoronna the Sorcer- ess’ she called herself on the great, flaring, lurid posters which, but a few weeks before, I had seen billboarded in New York. Eventually I took more direct methods to appease the Jandlord; and Lord Bob, learning of it, told me I was a wastrel, a spendthrift. But he thrust his personal note into my hand—dadnd, as avers in time he paid it. : | T HEN I met Zoronna Symondi. © | Lord Bob and Jackman had gone (é#\tout late in the afternoon. From the way they dressed and a few remarks that Lord Bob made, I guessed that they were going out on the bay. Lord Bob _owned a fast little cabin cruiser, though to keep it out of the hands of restless creditors he had made it over to Jackman. Lord Bob was painfully particular about his clothes, but I fancied that Jackman had been selected mofe for his ability to run a boat than.to groom a bachelor. Lord Bob, I well knew, was not nearly so much of a fool as it pleased him to pretend; and it was not easy for me to believe that he, who ap- peared perpetually in need of money, would keep a cruiser for the ‘infrequent use and small social pleasure he made of it. But other people’s business is none of mine. Cclo@@ oN ) © CO