Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

THE MEANEST MAN. Padding barefoot to the window, which was half open, he peered down. His hope was not without its reward; for, attached to a long string held by the elderly Italian impresario, and cheered thinly by a dozen tenement urchins, was a mangy, emaciated monkey properly clad in red coat and cap and bearing a diminutive tin cup in one paw. To it George chirruped. The Italian looked up, and at sight of the fat, good- natured face far above him he flashed a white-toothed smile and spoke a word to the already climbing monkey, who had been working his way up the face of the building, pausing at a window here and there for a coin. Presently its wizened face appeared be- side George’s unshaven one; it perched on the sill, and extended its rusty little cup. Ten seconds later it was ascending to the next floor above; but the tin cup was empty. The seventeen cents it had con- tained were in George’s pants pocket— enough, through his familiarity with Bos- ton, to buy him a fair breakfast. Possibly three minutes thereafter, the haunting aria from “ fl] Trovatore ” ceased in the courtyard below, to be replaced with a veritable pyrotechnics of Neapolitan grief and rage. The courtyard echoed to the din; the monkey-treasurer, unable to com- prehend the infamy of which it had been the victim, shivered before the lash of its master’s voice. ~The tenement children listened with awed delight; but George Bangs paid but scant attention. He had anticipated some- thing of the sort; people were always mak- ing such a silly fuss about money! All pers save ae that is. And he felt _ — * ~ aoe z < : r a A E BR a a ca o = —_ — — Oe - - a ORS == aes = Se Se es See reasonably sure that, among all the lodgers who had come in contact with the monkey and its cup, it would be impossible to iden- tify him. But fortune had not yet done with him. Even as he dressed; whistling cheerily, his alert nose isolated a pleasing odor among the variety of smells which ascended through his window. The Neapolitan and his ruined treasurer had departed; so, by the silence, had the children. The courtyard was momentarily desert- ed, save for a furtive cat foraging in a garbage can. But as George leaned out, following his trusty nose, he saw directly below him, set out on the fire escape to cool, a magnificent baked chicken, its skin all tans and russets and ochres, the fragrant steam rising like incense from its plump breast. It was destined for a picnic later on—a Polish festivity toward which Mrs. Sclem- ilski had prepared, as her share, this superb fowl. George Bangs did not struggle with a seats for he was not Benes, From — ae - - o. )