Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

406 ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. The music changed again. Jimmy’s thoughts centered upon one Adolphus Smith, to whom the certified check had been made out. He wondered if it had been Adolphus who had been in those huge, disreputable, and slovenly tied brogans which he had seen beneath the bookcase. Vivian was now playing “A Dream of Love,” by Liszt, and Jimmy opened his eyes to film the girl playing it, with a tug and an ache to the left of his ‘‘ wishbone ” that had never been so violently acute and persistent until coming to Coalport. CHAPTER VIII. ‘“ PRELUDE ”’ BY “‘ TIM” AND ‘“‘ TOM NSPECTOR BUGBEE, having failed to gather confirmation of Mike Burns’s opinions outside the door of Room 36, danced back into the lobby just in time to see the same saturnine-faced man shamble into the office who had appraised Jimmy Stuart on his arrival in Coalport. Jimmy, being in a pensive mood as well as in Room 36, was not able to see what Mr. Bugbee saw, and hence unable to un- derstand that the hat this man wore was far blacker than a bat’s wing. It was so much blacker that Jimmy’s simile was not even good. The man wearing it also walked with a slight stoop, like a longshoreman gripping ‘an invisible truck which he was eternally pushing past ahead of him. He was Thomas Tredway, city marshal and_ ex-freight handler, and the habit of years remained with him despite his elevation to office. “Lo, Marshal Tom,” greeted Inspector Bugbee. ‘‘ What brings you here? Ain’t they a quorum down to the seegar-store?”’ “Lo, Tim. Why, there ought to be. I’ve been too busy to go down. Thought _ [’d drop in and see you on a little matter on my way down. What do you know?” “A little matter’ might mean almost anything. It might even mean that the marshal had dropped in to get a cash stake. Officially his office closed at six. So Mr. Bugbee temporized. ‘‘T don’t know much, Tom. What’s on your mind?” 9 e ‘Nothin’ much. Say, Tim, what’s that young fellow do that come to town about noon to-day and is stopping with you?” “Stuart?” The marshal nodded. Mr. Bugbee rubbed his chin. ‘ Why, he sells typewriters, I guess, for he’s got one in a case with him.” ‘“‘'What makes you think he has? Did you see it?” “Why, I heard he started in at the bank to sell one. I sent him to Henry Phelps when he asked me the name of the big -smoke in Coalport. Phelps is hooked up about as well as anybody that lives here. Mike Burns told me this Stuart tried to sell Henry a typewriter, but only hurt Henry’s feelings. Why?” Although friends and cronies of long standing, they began their interchange like peker-players fiddling around a big jack- pot about to be opened. Scenting “ action ” of some sort with regard to his guest, Mr. Bugbee then and there decided that some ‘one must come to the rescue of his oat-bill note, which was for a hundred dollars, and nearly due. His inspecting to date had revealed noth- ing to confirm what Mike Burns had hinted, therefore even the meager dividend of get- ting Mr. Burns to assent to renewal of the note seemed a long way off. Jimmy had also sidestepped the poker game by retiring to his room. Mr. Bugbee, however, was still clerk of the Mansion House, and he had been a man of the world before that. Marshal | Tredway was paid to police Coalport. He was not. If the marshal wanted informa- tion, Mr. Bugbee was a poker-player! Mr. Bugbee, too, recalled the gift of cer- tain ‘‘ seegars,’”’ which his present financial status forbade his buying by the box. They were the kind of seegars that mellowed a man, and he relit one which he had left behind when he started inspecting. _ As he did so, Mr. Bugbee’s usually crafty face assumed an expression of utter and childlike candor. “What kind of a fellow is he?” asked Marshal Tom. “ Say, gimme a cigar like you’re smoking.” “Why, Tom, he’s the kind of a fellow that smokes seegars like these. Il save @ OQ = 9) COMNMUC mM