Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

TWO STEP LOU AND THE PROFESSOR. ran nimbly u: the keys and broke into a series of lively chords as the fiddler caught the tune. Two Step, throwing her shoulders in a manner which, somehow, seemed naughty, ran laughing back to her male companions. The last of the Farnsworths tipped his funny old derby and bowed. IV. THE next time the young woman saw him he was asleep in a darkened doorway just off Pacific Street. There he lay, his coat collar drawn up about his neck, one hand clutching its lapel to keep out the cold from his tired old chest. Two Step Lou, hurrying back to the sign of the Four Deuces, spied the old man and halted. For an instant she peered at his face in the dim light cast from a street lamp. ‘You poor old devil!” she murmured. Her voice choked, and she knelt sobbing beside the Professor. Her tears fell on the flaming silken shawl that was wrapped about her white shoulders. Some of them soaked into the worn old fabric of the vagabond’s coat. Two Step Lou woke him and led him to the dance hall. There she talked earnestly with Con Milroy, the proprietor. He shook his head. She stamped an angrv foot, and her dark eyes flashed. Then for several seconds things happened fast at the Four Deuces Bar. The flurry of activity con- cluded when Two Step slapped her em- ployer’s face and delivered this ultimatum: “ Listen here, damn you; you do as I sav or I’m through! I’m not asking you to give me anything. All I’m asking is to rez me that little back room for my friend. Either he stays here or I go over to the Flying Dutchman—and I'll take half your customers with me. Now talk fast, Con.” The owner gasped and threw an appre- hensive look at Two Step. A bunch of sailors from the Rio Norte, just in after six months’ monotonous cruising west of Borneo, raised a hilarious cheer and urged Two Step to black his blankety-blank eyes. Con grinned, shrugging his shoulders as though his opposition had been merely a little joke. “You win, Lou,” he said quickly. For 911 a moment he hesitated; then his curiosity got the better of his judgment. ‘ Suit your- self, Lou,” Con went on soothingly. ‘ The room’s yours, only—only what's the idea of keeping a half dead bum like that, huh?” Two Step looked over at the gentle old Professor, still shivering from the cold of that doorway couch. Tears came into her eyes and trembled on her lashes. But only for an instant. Suddenly the old satanic fire, so fascinatingly beautiful, flashed again in those lovely black eyes as she turned them on Milroy. “None of your damned business!” she snapped—and thus the matter rested. Why she felt such a strong attachment for the vagabond Barbarv’s citizens never learned. The Count opined that the Pro- fessor probably reminded Two Step of her father, but there were those outspoken and irreverent souls who raised the objection that, if Two Step ever had a father, she certainly never saw him or knew his name. After a time speculation ceased entirely and the dance hall girl’s filial relationship to the Professor was taken as an accepted and uninteresting fact. V. So the ancestral estate of J. Trowbridge Farnsworth had dwindled to one small rocm over the Four Deuces Bar. Two Step Lou, whose profession paid her well as money is measured, established his credit with the barkeep for six drinks a day. More than that he was not permitted to have. It wouldn’t be good for him, the dance hall entertainer ruled. But sometimes Two Step would relent and come to the Professor’s little room with a bottle. Then they would sit on the shabby cot while he talked of Plutarch and Pliny, Shakespeare and old Dr. Johnson, Dickens and other things of which Two Step had never even heard. In these subdued moods, when the old fellow’s companionship seemed to have a cheering sort of effect upon her, she didn’t mind listening to such outlandish chatter. She would smile up at him, for all the world like an encouraging pedagogue, as he Ccis- coursed for half an hour at a time about his old hero Socrates or the roving journey Conn lDOOlK