Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

ALIAS THE ANGLEWORM. 395 ‘* Shall I take it on the machine?” “Whichever you prefer.” She seated herself at the keyboard just a trifle self-consciously, due, as he divined, not to thoughts of herself, but his work. ““Dear boss,” Jimmy began again, “‘ were you ever an angleworm?”’ CHAPTER III. UNEXPECTED ELEMENTS. SHE looked at him with a half-dismayed expression—or was it doubt? Being in doubt himself, Jimmy frowned at the floor. Then: ° ? ‘¢ Shall I paragraph that?” “Tf the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Angleworms don’t come in soon enough to interfere, it may not be a bad idea,” said her client—‘ and also use a question-mark. I don’t think my boss ever was an angleworm.” - Her slight barrier of business reserve melted at his infectious absurdity. Jimmy liked her laugh, and wished he knew her name. That wish was his first false step. “New paragraph,” he resumed. “ If you ever were an angleworm, did you ever go on the warpath looking for some rooster to bite—or ready to bite all roosters you could crawl up to? Another paragraph?” He paused. The door opened, and a mail carrier came in, shuffling a handful of let- ters with the desperate air of a gambler about to deal cards for a huge stake. One missive fluttered to the corner of the desk near which Jimmy was dictating to his amanuensis. It balanced on edge long enough for him to read the name. “ Vivian Baldwin.” Thus Jimmy got his first wish. - Like many another person who gets what he wants, Jimmy wished he hadn’t got it at all. ‘ More than that. He wished he hadn’t so impulsively assumed the name and role, temporarily, of a dead-and-gone intrepid Greek adventurer. There were reasons for his sudden revul- sion—reasons existing before he had ever come to Coalport — on account of which the mere sight of the surname “ Baldwin ” made Jimmy Stuart’s brains begin explod- ing much as if some one had inserted and - Set off a capsule of TNT in his left ear. Thus was he rudely yanked out of the temporary elysium his fertile imagination had created on entering this office and see- ing this girl, and thrust against the reali- ties of life harder than ever. He turned away his face lest she see the flinty change which swept over it, in spite of the contrary effect mere sight of her had created before, for his face was hardening into granite, now that he knew her sur- name. To collect his chaotic thoughts he puffed vigorously on his expiring cigar, and his roving eyes followed the footsteps of the departing mail-carrier along the floor. The glance was as errant as some phases of his life had been, and without other in- tention save to keep him from looking at her until he again had himself well in hand. He knew she was waiting for him to re- sume dictating. He felt, rather than saw, her dainty hand reach out and take the letter; he heard the snap of her bag as she put it inside, just as the postman opened the door to the hall and walked out, closing it behind him. Then Jimmy, ere his eye left the sill be- neath the door, suddenly felt fey. A little word, “ fey,” expressing premoni- tion of hidden and coming evil, carrying with it situations so noxious that they sometimes breed lasting grief or disaster ir- remediable. Tense and strained already by the shock sight of her name had created, the fey feeling made his eyes waver uncertainly around the floor until they happened to en- counter the legs of the same bookcase he had remarked before. It had not moved from its place across the corner of the room, where it made a sort of a triangle. But, as Jimmy’s glance roved beneath the bottom of it, he saw a pair of large, although disreputable, shoes, and thought he saw one of them move. He watched those big shoes, fascinated as a bird looking into the twin eyes of a serpent. The simile wasn’t so bad. Two brass eyelets from which the polish was worn off supplied the ophidian with orbs. COMICEDOO S CO inn