Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

878 Can you focus Romeo and Juliet on their tin wedding? I couldn't. I couldn’t imagine no more than that one long clinch that would last down the ages. I was nineteen, but he hadn't come. The girls told me I ought to be out looking for him. There was plenty of Romeos along Broadway, they said. All I had to do was to change my old soft slippers at night for a pair of snappy French heelers and trip out to make some Rudolph fall. They said I would find one, too, if it come to that, Waiting outside in one of them yellow jackets that lines the curb as we files out nights. But I notices them that fools around yellow jackets usually gets stung. So I waited. And watched the rows of them fussy lit- tle French heels that squatted in the bot- toms of the lockers from nine till five, all set for tired feet to talcum themselves into and twinkle out on the Milky Way among the other stars. But me, I spurred my slip-slap old Su- sannas right up to the home door, alias Mom Gilman’s boredom house—rooms by the week and meals also weakly. And still I dreamed, on through the morning strap hangings and evening seat rushes, through the long day at the store that sped like a Scotchman’s courtship, through the cheese sandwiches nibbled be- tween C. O. D.’s in the basement cafeteria, still I dreamed of the wonderful man that was voing to insert the romance of the ages into my dull life. Finally he come. I seen him first, standing at the end of the counter and pawing over our loose im)- tation French ivory as timid as a terrier does a hot penny. He was tall, but stooped a little, as all high guys does nowadays from cheek-to-cheeking with the runty flap- pers. Yet his gray spring overcoat cas- caded natty from his broad shoulders, and he possessed that species of confiding, boy- ish face that would cause any Broadway baby to toss away the lipstick for the broomstick and give up cake eating for cake baking. In fact, just the kind of a man that makes a woman realize her place is in his home. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “Is there anybody waiting around here?” he inquired, pleasant, as he caught my eye—and J, my breath. “You seem to be,” I smiled, cleverly sandwiching my yellow pad with carbon. ‘Be with you in a minute. Just gotta fix up this ‘ charge and send.’ ” “IT don’t see how you do it,” he mar- veled, parking his elbow on a pile of combs —‘‘ add a column of figures that would of Stunned Steinmetz, remember the date, wrap up the bundle, answer fool questions and smile—all simultaneous.” ‘The first four come easy,” I sighed. “It’s the last that’s hard.” “Not for you,” he contradicted. ‘“ You smile as neat as easy as a—er—dental ad,” he finished, gallant. I thought he was going to pull some real poetic dope or something, but after all, his eyes was so nice and intriguing, it didn’t fall so flat at that. And, anyhow, as Jom Gilman so often says when offering the star boarder ‘‘ adjacent beer ”’ or which ever, ‘It’s the spirit of the thing that counts.” I blushed, bashful, and turned to busi- ness. “Now, what can I show you?” I in- quired, brisk. ‘“That smile again,” he insisted, ardent, ‘right where them two little dimples is planted.” ‘‘Humph, they’re century plants,” I re- turned, haughty. ‘“ Come again in a hun- dred years.” His face fell at my flipness like a pop- Over in a cold oven. ‘“Well, then, show me some ivory,” he ordered, serious. ‘“ Say, ain’t my hat off?” I laughed. He laughed, too, and the fog of misun- derstanding was rent by the breeze of my wit. So I showed him our wares, and we bent our heads real close—so close that his cheek, blue with a new shave and sweet with the fragrance of lilac, almost touched mine. ‘‘ Was it something for yourself, mister?” I probed, taking refuge in impersonalities. “No,” he scowled, perplexed, like all men shoppers is. ‘* What I come for was a kind of bureau set, brush, comb, mirror, An (CO) GIOok