Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

664 course, she excused him generously, he was accustomed to the chilly impersonality of the average New York lodging house keeper. “Oh, I can understand that—a man of your weight,” she smiled in friendly fashion to absolve him of any guilt on that score: “there was a man in Sharleyville—quite heavy—the doctor had warned him about Stairs, but he would run up and—” “One flight’s about:all I can stand,” he told her, and moved toward the door. “ Pll take a look—” ‘Just a moment, please!” He turned back obviously surprised. ‘“ I—I—won’t you sit down a moment? You see, before we go up—there are some things—some questions—” She faltered into embarrassed incoherence at his bewildered glance. He came back, laboriously excavating a thin gold watch which he glanced at hurriedly. “Tf it’s about references ’—she smiled her relief—‘ you'll find I ain’t one of these fly-by-nights! I been in one place nearly a year, but the old lady’s giving up the house.” “ Then you’ve lived in furnished lodgings before.”’ “ Since I was sixteen I ain’t lived in noth- ing else but,” he said proudly. Amalie shook her head and made little clucking noises of sympathy. “ You’ve been without a home all that time?” “Vou said it! I beat it away from the _jittle old home town just as soon as I’d saved enough berries to cover my railroad ticket.” Her eyes were warm with compassion. Here was the unfortunate original from which her melancholy picture had been drawn, “ Then you’re from a small town, too!” “Tf it was any smaller you couldn’t see it with the naked eye,” he chuckled. “Like Sharleyville,” she mused. “ You don’t happen to come from Kansas?” “I’m from up-State,” he said shortly. “¢ Now the last room I had—” ‘Oh, then you’re not so far from home after all,” she rejoined. “ You can run up to see your people once in a while!” “T could.” He laughed at the idea. ” a ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘But if I ever do it won’t be in a per- pendicular position. You say there’s a reg- ular bed in that room—” ‘“ But are your people all dead?” “Not so’s you could notice it. I got more relatives up-State than the bob-haired bandit got press notices. How many flights is that—” “Yet you never go home!” This was against all tradition. ‘ But I should think you’d get very lonely.” “Sure,” he admitted, “I like it.” “You never married?” “Say, do I look that dumb?” He had been holding his watch in a cushioned palm. He glanced down at it now, with an air of finality. ‘“ But I’d better give that room the once-over, I don’t need no Waldorf ballroom. I ain’t in any two much—” ‘You mean you—you keep late hours?”’ “Oh, maybe some ’d call ’em late.” He winked genially before a sudden, dark distrust overshadowed his expansive face. “ But, say, my habits is my own. If you’re going to show me that room—” ‘“ Please—you mustn’t think I’m prying just to be rude!”” She was twisting her fin- gers nervously. “I’m not, but this is a new undertaking for me, you see, and I do so want to make it a success, I know what you are used to—the sort of house. I’ve seen any number of them—where nobody knows anything about anybody else and no- body cares! But my house is going to be different—a real home, that’s what I want to make it and for just such men as your- self, who haven’t known the comforts of a home since boyhood.” Her enthusiasm swept away all self-consciousness. ‘‘ Why, I think the lodging houses in New York are simply criminal—so unfriendly, so heart- less, and the women who run them think- ing only of money!” She grew warmly confidential. ‘ Why, Mrs. Proctor—she’s the woman who had this house before— why, she told me herself that she didn’t know the first thing about any of her lodgers and that she didn’t want to know anything except the color of their money. Barbaric, I call that! And I made up my mind that my house should be a home— that’s why I had to know something about you, so that there could be a perfect under- EComichooks (S@)