Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

820 was so great that at eight fifteen every seat in the house was taken, and standing room only was being sold to gawky cow hands at the rate of fifty cents a head. But one of the customers was not the least gawky. He was a tall, wide-shoul- dered young man, dressed all in blue! _ His name was Blue Steel. CHAPTER VII. A SHOW-UP AND A SHOW-DOWN. HERE was an air of expectancy in the Elite Theater that evening when, after the local six-piece orchestra had played a Sousa march, the curtain went up and revealed the chorus of “ The Grass Widows” lined up across the stage. The advertised “ bevy of beautiful girls ” was made up of eight superannuated chorus ladies who might possibly have seen better days in the remote past. As soon as the rising curtain revealed them, the orchestra blared forth into strains of the opening chorus of the show, and the “ girls” per- formed various military evolutions while they bawled out the words of a light ditty. There was a moment of silence after the last one of them, at the conclusion of the song, had disappeared into the wings. The eyes of most of the people in the house were turned in the direction of the box that was occupied by Bowlegs Bowers and his party. Then the six occupants of the box com- menced to applaud vociferously, laughing among themselves as they did so, and the rest of the audience followed their lead. The theater fairly reverberated with the clapping of calloused hands, and in re- sponse to the encore the chorus soon ap- peared again. “They seem to like the chorus,” said Burke optimistically to the owner of the theater. “ Yeah?” replied the other dryly. “ Well, it’s a little too early to say jest what they like.” © On the stage the chorus was coming out again, and this time, after an entrance that had been built up for her, Lily Burke ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. pranced out and was picked up by a spot- light. “YT am a merry, merry, merry widow-w-w— A merry, merry widow-w am JI,” she sang in a rather husky soprano voice. There was silence while she was singing the song, for the six men in the upper right- hand box were quiet. She progressed to- ward the finish of the song, and finally con- cluded: “And so I’m a merry, merry widow-w-w— Oh, a mayree widow am I-I-I.” All eyes turned on the men in the box, and for a moment there was a deep silence throughout the house. Then Bowlegs Bow- ers rose a little unsteadily to his feet and loudly, but very deliberately, remarked to an acquaintance in the box that was oppo- site him on the other side of the house: “1 reckon, Shorty, that her husband must be right glad that he’s daid, don’t you?” The house broke into mighty guffaws of laughter, and then, imitating the six men in the box, started to applaud riotously. Burke, in the meantime, had made his way back-stage, arriving there just in time to face his wife after she had heard from the wings the remark of Bowlegs. Her hard face was harder than ever as she glared at Burke, who also heard the deep voice of Bowers booming through the theater, and who knew, only too well, what it portend- ed. He smiled at his severe spouse with a rather uncertain look in his eyes. “Tt looks, Lily,” he said, “as though they were here to razz us to-night. Well, they’ve paid their money for it, and—” “Tf they try to razz me, the low-lived bums,” Lily interrupted bitterly, “ they'll see how far they'll get! I’m tired of being made a fool of.” ‘“* Now, Lily,” commenced Burke suave- ly, “ you’ve got to expect a little of that, and—” “Ves,” she snapped. “ That’s just what you would say.. You—” But her indignation got the better of her, and she turned her back on her husband and walked toward her dressing room, leav- Gomichbooks (E()