Adventure Magazine Cover — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

eT 5 s\n ‘ a | ‘4 ~ ~. ¢ as , t SINNERS I mentioned the girl, the duke became incensed. **The lecher!”’ he exclaimed. “His lieutenant told me he was out for a stroll.” Thereupon the duke called his chaplain, sent one of his men to find the girl, and when the two were before him, he ordered the chaplain to marry the girl to me, then and there, in order, as he said, to gain two marks with one shot: The count whom he wanted out of the way for personal reasons was dead; and the duke could make a great play of vir- tue with the townspeople. Since I was loath at the time to accept a place in his guard, the duke gave me a bag of gold (which I in turn gave to the girl), and sneering at my preference for the mercery, dis- missed me, saying the place would be open if I should make a choice anew. He gave me, too, a par- don for old Porsini, whom in truth he had found out, on condition that the mercer take me back and treat me fairly. But Porsini turned me from his door before I had opportunity to reveal to him the paper [ carried. Thereupon, seeing me thus turned out, Ercole, an- other apprentice, stole forth and presented me with a little money he had saved up, for (simple-hearted wretch!) he was under the impression I aspired to the hand of the mercer’s daughter, and now, at my departure, I should leave him free to press his own suit. I took the money, giving him in return the duke’s paper, to hold over the head of old Porsini as a club, thus insuring better treatment at his hands. With the money I went on a three days’ drinking bout, ending up in a street-gutter, where Stella, the girl I had married so suddenly at the duke’s behest, found me and brought me to her home. In a very short time I had become part and parcel November 23rd, 1926 of the Olivieri household, even to the wearing of one of Papa Olivieri’s suits in place of my own garments which I had ruined during my drinking bout. It then transpired that, having been promised their trade by a great many of the townspeople, Stella and I opened up a mercery with the gold the duke had given me, and for the nonce, did very well withal. Then Stella, getting into her head false notions as to position and prestige in the community, began to hint that she was too good to work in the shop, that it ill befitted the wife of a prosperous young mercer to wear the clothes she did, and other such nonsense, goaded on and abetted in it by her shrewish mother and an old virgin virago of an aunt. Stella even suggested that I cut aninch or two off the yard- stick and thus realize a little more profit on our sales, saying, poor wretch! that all the other mercers did that very thing; why not we? Soon afterward I was summoned to Rome to attend my iather who was dying; he died with my brother's name on his lips, my brother who had run away from home to seek adventure on far seas. For me it was evident that he had nothing but scorn. And thus he died, and with the proceeds that I forced from one of his debtors, I laid him away. Traveling back to Rometia, I fell in with the pink- bearded sergeant and a troop of horse. They had been waiting on His Holiness the Pope for some message to their master, the duke. We talked of many things, and the more I weighed my own hapless condition with that of these care-free swash:- bucklers, the more I envied them. When I got home, I found things had gone from bad to worse. Trade had fallen off to almost nothing; our creditors I4I MICLOOOKS (C@