Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

4~ MUSTERED OUT. 387 “Yowre making a mistake, Lola,” Reever Keene. “Mistake, am I?” She shook the letter at him with sudden passion. ‘“ Maybe I don’t know a chicken’s writing when I see it, huh? Well, if you think I’m a fool, this ends it! You can go along with your Jim Bleeker all you damn please! When you get ready to talk turkey to me—” Lola drew off the walnut diamond and said - laid it, very carefully, on the corner of the dressing-table under Reever Keene’s nose. The whole action was very statu- esque and very dramatic; at least, was so intended. An instant later Lola uttered a despairing shriek. Reever Keene had seized the wal- nut diamond and had hurled it through-the _open window—hurled it with a swing that sent it glittering through the air to Heaven only knew where! “Ends it, eh?” snapped Keene. ‘‘ Then I’m blamed glad of it! So-long!”’ Lola fainted as he vanished, and imme- diately the dressing-corridor was filled with figures answering her final dramatic shriek. Reever Keene went outside and climbed into his plain green-black car and drove down the street to his lodgings. Once there, he wiped the paint from his face, with a curse, and began to pack up his things. He paid his landlady. He burned Mrs. Bleeker’s: letter over the oil- stove. Then he threw his stuff together in the rear of the car, and drove down to the bank, where he drew what money he kept deposited there. This finished, he went to the central gasoline station and turned over his car to be filled with gas and oil, and to be load- ed with sundry extra five-gallon cases of the same. While he was watching these affairs being brought to conclusion he heard a wild hail and saw the president’s car stopping at the curb, and the president, himself descending, red and perspiring of face. ‘ Hey,. Keene!”’ demanded the magnate heatedly. “ What the devil’s struck you? They said you blew out o’ the studio like a wild man and quit work! Get on back there—” “Go to hell!” snapped the star. “ I’ve quit being Keene. I’m Aloysius Larrigan, see? And don’t get fresh, you!” ‘“What! ~Where you going?” “Tm going to Kansas, where I got busi- ness,” retorted Larrigan. ‘ Hurry up with them two cans of oil, over there! And blow up the extry tires while you’re about it, partner.” The president seized him by the arm. ‘Look here, you!” he exploded violently. “ Are you quittin’ on the job—quittin’ 2” “Tam,” said Latrigan coldly. “ By Heaven, if you bust this contract I'll see to it that you never get another job in front of any damned camera in the world!” raved the other. ‘ I’ll—” “You,” said Larrigan, “and your con- tract, and your seventeen companies, and your. directors, and your money, and your whole damn camera battery, and your entire double-dashed motion-picture indus- try—go to hell! I’m done! Mustered “Ob eeeee He shoved a greenback at the gasoline dealer, climbed into his car, and went. The president gazed after him with eyes of dulled, glazed despair. ‘ Bein’ in the army—that’s what done it for him—ruined the best star in the whole damned works!” he murmured dismally. “Damn the Kaiser!” : Perhaps You have tried to solve “THE DEVIL’S RIDDLE’’ ‘BY EDWINA LEVIN - Beginning April 19 conmiclooolks.conn