Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

. Chickens looking for a sea trip! i want some one congenial along. You're engaged. Never mind about your not hav- ing been a companion before. That doesn’t » need any training. Either you are or you are not. I can’t sail unless I have some one to tell my troubles to without being afraid they'll be repeated to the rest of the crowd inside of an hour. If you’d seen the ones who have applied! Gum chewers and Send back to the Martha Washington, or wherever you are stopping, for your things and tell me where you came from, where you get your complexion and how you curl your hair.’ ”- ‘beast, started an affair with her maid, and V. JrmMy sat admiring the girl’s vivacity as she conjured up the scene of her engage- ment with clever intonation and gesture. Most girls, he fancied, would have collapsed by now in reaction, but she was telling her misfortunes with a sense of humor that he had not hitherto crédited women with hav- ing under such circumstances. What a regular pal a girl like her would make! Thorpe had never been in love. He had spooned a bit, had sometimes thought vaguely of getting married, had shied off from it again, thanked his stars he had not fallen, like some men had done, and phi- losophized, after the manner of young men who consider themselves modern but are of all the ages, that a man was best off single. He had never before experienced the feel- ing that now possessed him, a sensation due only to the fact that he was in love at first sight with this girl who had come to him out of the night, and held the conviction that there never was and never could be any girl in the world like her and that he would be a lucky dog if he could get her to respond. Such a happening he had hitherto regarded as incredible, a fiction of writers of love stories. Now it appeared supremely natural. -. She must have been desperate, but she was eminently self-reliant. He longed for an adequate chance to show his qualities ef protection. He wondered whether the first mate had been the one whe annoyed her. He had a private grudge against that person already. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, The girl was going on. “Things went well enough until we passed Panama. Mr. Melville made some great amount of money during the war. A profiteer.. He wanted to spend it as easily as he had made it. And his guests were of the same sort, some of them just there to help the spending. “Mrs. Melville was kind enough, but she is weak. They used to sit up half the night playing cards or flirting—and drink- ing. She was often jealous of her husband, and her nervousness came from that. It wasn’t easy to handle her. Melville, the after that I had to perform the duties of a maid rather than a companion. “Things have been getting worse right along. They gave a big affair at Tahiti, and invited half of Papeete. It ended in a sort of drunken riot. I ought to have left then, but Mrs. Melville was-really ill. It was that night that one of the men began to bother me.” Thorpe’s jaw was thrust forward, his fists balled, his eyes. cold. “He did, did he?” he asked grimly. ‘“‘ One of the yacht’s officers?” “No. A man named Carter, a kind of partner of Melville. Perhaps that was why he wouldn’t interfere. I had to appeal to him. His wife was not speaking to him— hasn’t since we left Tahiti. She did speak to Carter, and he laughed at her. Melville told me it was a pleasure voyage and for me not to be a little prig. He said that Carter was a good fellow and that I was a fool not to encourage him.” “What is Carter ike?” Jim’s voice was husky. “ Like the rest of them. A cad.” T gitl’s voice was cold and cynical. “TI be- lieve he used to be a college athlete once, . and now the best he can do is to belong to a country club. There is hardly one of them who has been really sober since Papeete, and they have carried on their affairs openly. ““} went to the captain, but he is the kind who knows on which side his bread is: buttered. He is a good navigator, I be- lieve, and a fine disciplinarian with his own men, = his. attitude to his: employer's The — — Se -COMmIEbOOKS.co