Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

478 -ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. His pulses leaped with anticipation. This gave place to blank despair as he waited, while she listened at the telephone. It was probably some other woman friend who was telephoning to her. Women always called one another ‘“ dear.” “Oh, very well, dear,” he heard her say. The little man heard the swish of her silken skirts as she returned toward the living-room. He cowered in his chair, star- ing hungrily. Perhaps, after all—per- haps— ; “Oh, Mr. Osgood,” came Mrs. Lemp’s low, vibrant, musical voice; “ Mr. Lemp was phoning. He has arranged that you meet Mr. Lloyd, who will give you a few minutes at three o’clock.” Up from his chair sprang Tom Osgood, as if shot therefrom by some fantastic spring. His webbed little face turned red and white, thus furnishing a vivid contrast to his blue mood of a moment previous. “Oh, Mrs. Lemp—thank you!” he stammered. ‘I guess Pl start. down-town now, if you don’t mind, and hang around. I want to see Mr. Lemp again for a few minutes before I see Mr. Lloyd.” Eunice didn’t mind at all, and in a few moments she sat enjoying the first moments of peace she had experienced since rising. Tom Osgood was about as calm company as an equinoctial storm. Presently, while passing the bath-room toward the kitchen, to give some directions to the maid, she glanced in at the open door. She stopped and stared, then went in to investigate. e The early spring weather remained raw, and the steam-pipes of the apartment were purring. The radiator was Mrs. Lemp’s magnet. Ranged, neatly drying over its top, was an array of the Osgood laundry. A pair of cotton half-hose of raven hue, and a suit of B. V. D.’s and two handkerchiefs had been washed with toilet soap in -the ' bathtub and hung thereon. Underneath these intimate necessities of wear, placed so to protect them from streaks of iron-rust from the radiator, Os- good had carefully laid one of his hostess’s best, embroidered towels. usually placid eyes. She stretched forth vengeful hands to cast the garments into a corner and to rescue her insulted towel. Midway, her slender, beautifully mani- cured hands fell helplessly at her sides. She shook her head with a hopeless gesture and turned away. Whatever else he was, Osgood was a guest! Nor, she decided, with the fine instincts roused by this fact of his guesthood, would she tell her husband of the incident. Osgood would doubtless retrieve his laundry upon his return. It should be a deep, dark secret between them. ‘““ Now, see here, Tom,” cautioned Lemp in his office, one minute before three o’clock, “ Lloyd’s a cross between a pile- driver and a cleaver. Mind what'T tell you. Not a syllable to him about hard luck or personal affairs. Just business, see? And buck up! You’re not going to the death- chair.at Sing Sing. You’re going to ask for what is your inalienable right—a job!” : “Tl remember,” gulped the trembling little Tom, and walked jerkily out of the office and down the corridor. Lemp watched him go with a slow shake of the head. In five minutes he was back, a victim of the nth degree of suspense. “T can’t make him out,” he throbbed miserably. “ He’s—terrible! Um afraid he got me—tangled. He wants to see you.”’ It was fifteen years later, as it seemed to the little man nervously pacing Edward Lemp’s office. In reality it was less than fifteen minutes. Sales Manager Lloyd, a man with spiky, blond hair, a cold-blue eye that could bore through chilled steel, and shoulders that continued to advertise the fact that a num- ber of years before he had decked the roster _ of-all-American football for three seasons, banged a massive fist on his desk following a verbal give-and-take. “TE tell you, Lemp, this is too much and then some!” he bawled. ‘“ Prentiss has re- signed, yes; but hang it! Pd have asked lites to do it in another month, for I’ve got Instant battle-light leaped into the lady's a real man in mind te put in his place, a é i fy comicbooks-com