Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

By HOWARD ROCKEY ICK BOLTON’S salary as a clerk [) was twenty-five dollars a week. He let it be generally understood that he was making fifty. “A mere pittance,” Dick would explain to the others at the boarding house when he stayed in of an evening. “Tl be a partner one of these days—or open a shop of my own. You see, I’m valuable to the boss because of my acquaintance.” Some of the boarders swallowed that. Others smilingly took it with a grain of salt. In either event, his boasting flattered Bolton’s vanity. He was a natural poser as well as a most impractical and romantic dreamer. If Dick’s boss had happened to hear him, he would have snorted with contempt. “Tf there ever was a loafer who likes - tc gape at the looking-glass and pretend 912 he’s what he’s not, it’s that young jacka- napes! The trouble with the young fool is that he’s too good-looking.” In that, old Simon Bloom was right. — Dick looked like a polo player or a boon companion of the Prince of Wales. He brushed his blond hair sharply back from his well-formed forehead. His shoulders were broad and he was built like a British guardsman. Many of Bloom’s customers remarked on his appearance. They were the smart- est and wealthiest people in New York. Young Bolton memorized their names and expressed his contempt of them—from a strictly scenic standpoint. “Take Anson Van Groot, for instance,” Dick remarked to Anna Morton, as. they walked in the park one evening. “ More money than he can ever spend, and blood tA GComichboo <S (EO)