Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

592 nine or ten pairs of boots dolled up with spurs—and as I staggers round in this art gallery of the dead frontiers, I begins to think this baby either takes hop or I has run onto a lost star. ‘Tt ain’t so bad, Joe,” I says, thumping him familiarly on the back. ‘‘ No, sir, it ain’t so bad. Has you been married be- fore?” ‘“ Not me,” he says, doing a red blush and getting up out of his chair. ‘‘ I ain’t never been in love even.” “My goodness!” I whispers huskily. “You don’t tell me no handsome guy like you has been runnin’ round loose all these years?” ‘“ Aw, girls ain’t lookin’ for my kind,” he replies, gazing down at the floor. they likes fellows which has a lot of money or which is famous.” “Exactly,” I shoots forth, seeing in a minute I has found the lad’s sore spot. Here is a big, two fisted slap hound which has got everything in him to make a great fighter; but what he needs is some good guidance and some little flattery. J gets it that he would like to be kayo with the cuties, but being a backward kind of a bird, he don’t never think he could do any high flying. “ Exactly,” I repeats, lay- ing my hand on his arm. “ Yes, sir. You let me handle you, Joe, and in a year you're goin’ to have all the sweet girlies in the world chasin’ after you for a tender smile. You got the looks, kid, and you sure has got the makin’ of a wise cracker.” “Would you like to see some of my pic- tures?” he asks; and by his tone I sees I has touched his soul. You know, these here kind of saps is just babies at heart, and if you treats them right and don’t hurt their feelings, you got a chance to do big things with them. This one, he is so impossible lookin’ in the face that if you was to meet him alone on a dark night, you’d think somebody let out a goril- la and advised it to slap you to sleep. Be- ing wild looking and backward, this here freak ain’t never had nobody to make a fuss over him—and if they is any guy in the world which don’t like people, and es- pecially the female people, to make a fuss over him—then my name is Know Nothing. « Girls, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, ‘Sure, I would wish to see your pictures, Joe,” I says with heavy enthusiasm. |“ Maybe when we gets you trimmed up for the ring, and you has made a lot of money, you could do the retire and take up your paintin’ seriouslike.”’ ‘ That’s what I want to do,” he says with a grin. “I don’t want to never have to draw for money—I just want my art to be soopreme.” While I is turning this over in my massive brains, Joe paws round in some kind of a chest and hauls out five or six million sheets of paper and comes across with them. He drags the candles up on a flat table and tells me to look while he shuffles. Now I don’t know nothin’ about this kind of ink art, and I don’t know whether his ‘lines is right or not, but what this bozo unfurls for me gets me. Yes, sir, it knocks me right between the eyes for some gasps. The pictures is wows, and they is all of the ‘Wild West, showing guys sittin’ on tops of ~ horses’ heads while the horses ‘stands up on one leg and dances; they is pictures of stage coaches and guys drawin’ big guns; they is pictures of cows runnin’ across plains, or whatever you calls it out there— they is some pictures of guys throwin’ mean hands at poker in saloons, and they is pic- tures of crowds fightin’ in the open air. I looks these all over and I begins to think this here lad has got something sale- able. And the more I turns this over in my mind the more I figures it out that if I don’t handle him right, he won’t never take up the fight game. But I get the hunch that once this Montana raspberry gets to going pretty to the sound of the gong, maybe he’ll forget the Greenwich Village stuff and make some dough for all of us. “Joe,” I says softly, looking up at him in the mellows of the candle light. “I ain’t no guy to kid you—you has got the goods. You is a artist. But what you has to do is to make some real money, so’s you won’t have to beg them critics to look over your pictures and cuss ’em out. They is a bird called Micky Squires which I wishes to work you up to. This here gent is now the prize champ heavyweight. He’s the baby I is workin’ you up to smack to sleep and steal that there title, which is