Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

466 up at him in the same inquiring, way I had come to recognize. “Well, gentlemen,”’ Mr. Berford said, in that crisp voice of his, “now that you’ve said all these nice things about me, may If be permitted to thank you?”’ “It’s not necessary, Tom,”’ Bennett said. “And, having thanked you, to make a little speech of my own!” the president smiled. ‘‘ What I have to say is of a dis- tinctly personal nature and perhaps this is not quite the place to say it. But on the other hand,” he went on soberly, ‘“ perhaps it is a confidence which is due you gentle- men. I recognize to the full the close rela- tion between a man’s personal life and his business life; to you gentlemen, the direc- tors of our company, I have always tried to make my life an open book—and hence, perhaps more than you quite understand, I appreciate very deeply the trust in me that you have been so kind as to express.”’ He drew a long breath and looked rather uncomfortable and sheepish. They stared at him with growing curiosity. “All of this, gentlemen, is leading up to the announcement that your bachelor presi- dent, shortly, will no longer be a bachelor president, é& ‘““Huh?” said Craven. “T expect to be married in June.” ““ Married?” gasped Mr. Bennett. ‘‘ Married!”’ smiled the president, “ Well—by cracky!” the old boy yelled, joyfully. ‘ Going to turn human like the rest of us, are you? Going to get out of the hermit state and join the jolly old race, eh? Well, that’s fine, Tom! That—that— that—by gad! that’s tremendous!”’ Now all of them were gabbling about it, too! They popped out of their chairs and swarmed around the president, shaking his hand and congratulating him; even Craven joined in this, although without much en- thusiasm. Mr. Berford waited patiently until they had quieted down; then More- land asked: ‘“Who’s the fortunate lady, Tom?” ‘Well, that’s the second part of my an- nouncement,” the president said, with a broad smile. ‘‘ The lady who has done me the very great honor of consenting to be my wife is—ah—Miss Alicia Storm!” expectant ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Just exactly as if five strings had pulled them, all five sat bolt apEtelit and gaped at him. ‘“ Not—not George S‘torm’s daughter?” Jones cried. “His only daughter,” Mr. Berford said quietly. Moreland got up to the surface about that time with a new gasp: ‘Youre going to—to marry the Storm Manufacturing Company?” “T am going to marry Mr. Storm’s daughter,” the boss repeated, rather frostily. ‘* Well—well—well—here! Here! God bless my soul, what did I tell you? What did I say, not five minutes ago?” Mr. Ben- nett sputtered, quite crazily. ‘ Didn’t I predict that—um—that—” And just there he caught Mr. Berford’s eye which was quite cold and steely, and he subsided sud- denly with a mumbled: “‘ Not—not to im- ply, Tom, that—ah—not to imply, of course, that—er—well, you know what I mean, my dear boy!” There was a heavy hush, second after second, as they assimilated the news. Mr. Jones broke it, in a queer, awed little voice: “We called him—called him perfect,” and he looked around dizzily. ‘‘ Isn’t there | any stronger word than that? Isn’t there any stronger word than just perfect?” CHAPTER II. REGARDING LUCK. DON’T know. The longer you live in this world, the more of a shame it seems that nothing under the sun can ever be quite one hundred per cent perfect. What T mean is that, if you ever did happen to stumble on a mine with a billion dollars’ worth of pure gold in the middle of a desert, some infernal crape-hanger would be sure to pop up from nowhere at all and tell you that probably it wasn’t pure gold—and if it was, gold was going down so fast that it wasn’t worth anything like a billion dollars —and even if it stopped going down, it would probably cost more to mine it in this particular location than the gold was worth. It was just like that in this matter of Mr. Berford’s announcing. his 5 engagement.