Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

FATE AND EVELYN. along in there. The name of the town was Blueville. We got into that town, and the manager had a fight with his wife, and had a couple of drinks, and me and Marie met him on the street alone near the hotel, and he stopped and wanted to talk to us. Marie says to him: “‘ What’s them marks all over you?” Then he looked at himself all over and says: “‘ What marks?” And Marie looked at him like she just found out something, and she says: ‘‘ Oh,” she says. ‘“‘I know! Them is the marks where the apron strings is tied around you all the time.” | “Say, listen, kid,’ he says to her. “Don’t get fresh with me!” “Ts that so?” says Marie. ‘“ Well, any time I want to get fresh with anybody it won't be with anybody like you,”’ she says. ‘“‘T will find somebody that ain’t married to get fresh with,” she says. ‘“ And if he is married it will be somebody that ain’t so scared of their wife that they are afraid to wear a Clean collar for fear the old lady will think they are trying to make a Hit with somebody else.” ‘Ts that so?” the manager says. ““ Ves, that’s so!” Marie says. And then he hauled off and slapped her alongside of the jaw, but he did not knock her down, so I hauled off and I hit him with my parasol and broke it, and I says to him, “ Vl teach you to hit my friend!” And he says: “ Is that so!” he says. And he hauled off and he hit me along- side of the jaw, only he hit me harder than he did Marie, or maybe I wasn’t standing so flat on my feet or something, and he knocked me down. As soon as I fell down I got right up again, and I was going to hit him again with my parasol, only when I got up a lot. of fellows who had been standing around here and there—hicks they were—they had already hit him. They were yelling and hollering and shouting and cursing and swearing and everything. He was down on the sidewalk, and some of them were hit- ting him and some of them were kicking him. A woman come over to me when I got up, and she was a hick, too—a kind of a nice hick—and she says to me: “ You 895 poor child,” she says, hurt?”’ I started to tell her no, I wasn’t hurt much, but I begun to cry. Some other women come and asked Marie was she much hurt, and she begun to cry, too, and then a fellow come along and took hold of Marie’s arm and says, ‘“‘ Are you bad hurt?” He was a kind of a nice looking fellow for a hick; kind of a young fellow, only not too young, and he had pretty good clothes on, and was he mad? Ooch! Was he mad! We found out later that he was the first fellow that hit the manager after he hit Marie and me. So he says: “Are you bad hurt?” and Marie looked at him and shut her eyes and done a flop. Huh! I bet if he had been an old hick, or one that was too young, or maybe not good looking or something like that, I bet she would have told him to go on and mind his own business. But no! She done a flop, and he grabbed her in his arms and he says. ‘‘ The poor child!” he says. And he carried her into a drug store. The lady that asked me was I hurt, and some more that come and asked me was I hurt, too, they all took me into the drug store, too, and then the cops come and got what was left of the manager after all the hicks got done hitting him and kicking him and took him off to the jail. The way them ladies made a fuss over us you would think we was some famous convicts that had reformed, or maybe a couple of girls that had shot some rich fel- low for love and was sorry for it or some- thing like that. The fellow that carried Marie into the store—the good looking fel- low—was all worked up like an actor play- ing the part of a fellow that gets mad. He stamped around and waved his arms and said it was a shame and all this and that. The woman that had asked me was I hurt got an automobile to come for her, and she took Marie and me to her home, and a doc- tor came to see us there and said we was all right, only we was suffering from shock. Can you beat that? You would think we was run over by a street car or had drunk some stuff with wood alcohol in it or something like that instead of having Comicwiooks “are you much (CO) in