Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

THE RETURN OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, the time his impressions of the new George Washington had been reduced to a form that satisfied him. CHAPTER XXV. A HUMAN BEING. BLANKET of hot golden sunlight upon his face aroused the earnest managing editor of The Daily It at three o’clock in the afternoon. He looked at his wrist-watch. The time was, actually, three-fifteen. He had been asleep eleven hours. It’ seemed to him that every joint in his body was sore. He felt absolutely limp, burned out. His eyes ached. By pushing himself up on his elbow he could look out a window and across a bright green field. He saw the leaves of an elm tree rustling in a vagrant breeze. He heard the murmuring of the brook. A warm cur- rent of air, sweet with the odor of some flower, crept in at the window. He sniffed approvingly Larry seated himself on the edge of the bed and reached for a cigarette and matches as the white porcelain doorknob stealthily revolved and the door opened sufficiently to admit the anxious face of McWhorter. The reporter’s expression was gladdened by a smile. “ Goshamighty, boss, I was beginning to think we’d have to put you in that white cylinder to bring you back to life!” Larry asked him what was new. “ How’s Washington?” “He’s fine. papers just came up by plane. ’em.” He left and Larry went to the window. A group of perhaps twenty men were in the front yard, talking. He saw other men lounging about the small tent city which had been erected to accommodate news- paper men, telegraph operators, news reel photographers, radio crews. Smoke was I'll go get rising from a stove near the community — mess tent. Larry saw no signs of mobs, but he heard, in the distance, a muffled roaring. Later he would learn that the country for miles The morning and noon about was swarming with countless thou- sands of people; that all roads leading to 579 this section were hopelessly jammed with | traffic; that enterprising men with tel- escopes on distant hilltops were charging, for one peep at the Morgan house, one dollar, two dollars, even five. The whirring of an airplane drew his eyes toward the bright sky. A biplane was banking, preparing to alight in the flat meadow behind the laboratory. He saw it come to earth; saw it im- mediately surrounded by men in blue uniforms; saw it at once take to the air again. He grinned. Detective Sergeant Walker evidently had the situation well in hand! Connecticut troops, he would later learn, surrounded the Morgan farm in shoulder- to-shoulder formation, a human picket fence of bayonets. McWhorter returned with a _ heavy bundle of morning and afternoon news- papers. Flashlight photographs of Wash- ington, dazed and staring, occupied every front page. He glanced at the headlines. Unanimously they screamed that Washing- ton lived again. The feeling of last night’s mob panic was in them all. When he had glanced over the front pages, after briefly scanning his two prom- inent stories in The Ji, he looked into the inner pages. Congress, he learned, had approved an appropriation of fifty million dollars with which to pay for the resurrec- tion of the fifty greatest dead Americans. Congress was frantically determined to dictate George Washington’s program. Professor Morgan, in a serious but not critical condition, had had opiates admin- istered in a Hartford hospital and, at last report, was still sleeping. George Washington, in the Morgan farm- house, had arisen at 8 A.mM., breakfasted upon oatmeal, ham and eggs, coffee and toast, and had consented to be interviewed. Larry eagerly read the questions and answers. “What was your first thought upor re- turning to life?” “T was bewildered.” “ Did you think you were in hell?” - “T believe I did.” (ECO AMIE DOOKS (E(@)