Adventure Magazine Cover — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

126 just the moment. A fellow with upraised hand, clicking the dice by his ear as if listening to the number they promised him, stopped and turned to inaction for three seconds until he saw that it was Billy the. Dude; then he threw the bones with grunt and snap of finger. Eyes suddenly brows had darted toward the door; each newcomer, though he were the devil him- self, is 4n enemy until recognized. And at the instant of recognition the buzz and bustle went on again as if thrown back into gear by a lever. These were not kingpins of crookdom, or anything of the kind. The kingpins hold their heads high as any son of a historic Dutchman and have their pardons framed before their crimes are committed. But all the crowd had good fronts with silk next the skin, patent leather across the toes. The yegg type, with beetling brows, drooping shoulders, the furtive, wicked look, the soiled and ragged clothes, brogans, beard-spotted jaws, is what the great Ameri- can imagination visualized at the word “crook;” that is, the popular picture is a barrel-house bum. Nobody wears better clothes than the up-to-date gangster, for if he finds anybody with a better front than his own he is likely to take it off him. But there was a strained, seamed hag- gardness in most of their faces, an expres- sion of predatory hunger, a sort of pinched look not to be accounted for by the thinness of feature, that marked them as profes- sionals, It is an ironic fact that a crook seldom has a sound night’s sleep until he is clapped into jail; the strain is over, the worst has happened, and in the first ease- ment of reaction he finds a brief soothing rest on the cot behind the bars. - But not for long even there. His worries begin again in the fear that friends or lawyer will give him the double-cross. “°LO, BILLY. Gee, but I’m glad to see a human bein’. Set yourself down. I gotta spill my long, sad spiel.” The girl, arms folded on the table, wearily put a cigaret between her lips and eyed him with half-sad amusement. “W’at bited youse, Mame?” he asked, dropping into a chair and stretching his feet at full length. “Me? Say, me boy does a tumble out to K. C. I tol’ him to lay off them jay towns. a-glitter under scowling Adventure It spoils a gun to work ’mong boneheads. He gits sloppy—like my Jimmy does, an’ they put him away for two year. Two year in Missouri! I tol’ him not to go hopscotchin’ around in the backwoods like that. An’ he does a fall that jars his back teeth out. I gets a wire— “Framed. Stony and without a mouthpiece. ‘Nice cheerful news, wasn’t it? I'll tell the worl’! I takes ever’thing that’s stickin’ aroun’ loose an’ sends it to this here Kansas City. But it was a no go. The judge had spoked. The lawyer keeps the dough. Aw, She said it without bitterness, with a kind of dispirited humor, as if it were all a part of the game and she wouldn’t squeal when hit. Said Billy the Dude: “Aw, Mame, Jimmy c’n do dat on his ear. Two year— wit’ good behavior off. It’s a pipe, Mame. But w’y didn’t youse let me know when youse needed de fall money?” “Hatch my own eggs,” said Mame wearily sipping her beer. “But listen, William. I ain’t trough. I jus’ begun.” “Shoot,” said Billy encouragingly. “T goes shoppin’, see? An’ don’t no sooner get inside t’ door before a tall, perlite guy wit’ a badge under his armpit an’ a smile comes up an’ says: ‘“* “We hate to lose good customers, but’d youse mind patronizin’ our rival ’cross t’ street?’ “T stalls wit’: a lady!’ “He says: ‘T know it, Mame. I agree wit’ you, m’ girl, But as a personal favor t’ me, jus’ shop across t’ street.’ So I take t’ air. ‘An’ ever’ place I go I’m spotted. I either get t’ office or a shadow. Them department stores seem t’ t’ink a shop- lifter don’t have to eat.” ““Gee,”’ Billy responded sympathetically. ‘An’ them Loudens makes a yell what almos’ scares the Stature of Liberty off her perch. Didn’t I have to send Jimmy some coin, quick? I did. Down t’ street one of me Central Office frien’s says— ‘Sir, youse insult me. I’m “““Mame, keep out o’ sight ’r we'll have | to run you in.’ ‘So I steps in the doorway an’ digs down f’r my roll. He says, “T’anks,’ perlite as you please. I ain’t gone a block before another un says: MICLOOOLK (©