Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

“ pe a Naga ~~ | —_ ao s " a= 4 £ al ea ina * <a i 7 bee hart” Sets te far air 64 CARYL BRAHMS “And the jewellery,” Tante Marie-Rose was urging, “ surely you cannot still wish the ignoble Gustave to-have your turquoise parure?” “ My turquotses to that villain—are you mad? They are for my. dear niece Rose-Marie.” In the steam of the window Tante Marie-Rose relaxed. ‘‘ She is a dear good girl, if I do say it of my own daughter! ” By now the little woman with the picnic-basket had thrown all pretence of polite concealment to the steam. She particu- larly enjoyed the drumstick, and this she ate without troubling to disguise her relish, licking each separate plump little fingers when she had done. Then she arose, brushed off the crumbs from her travellings costume, and went down the corridor to wash her hands, leaving Monsieur Gustave alone with the Maidenhair Fern. But Monsieur Gustave was listening to his voices. “ Then,” his Oncle Prosper was finalizing, “ our daughter Rose- Marie gets your stocks, your shares, your rents, this house, the furni- ture, the pedigrees, the paddocks, the jewellery, the lot!” “ The lot,” agreed Tante Mignonnette placidly. Somewhere in the world that is, an engine whistled. The train passed through a tunnel. Monsieur Gustave’s vision was blotted out. But by this time the little woman had returned to the carriage and was refreshing her fern with a bottle of Evian. “ You have to water it every day,” she explained. Monsieur Gustave blinked. It was a leaden-hearted Monsieur Gustave who, with hang- dog head and heavy tread, approached the entrance to his lodging- house, some hours later, although the Day of Judgment was still in the comfortable distance of the future, for Madame la Concierge was certainly still with her daughter and by now should have a grandchild on her mind instead of a Maidenhair Fern, for assuredly the summons must have come. So Monsieur Gustave cheered himself up and came striding quite buoyantly through the hall where, from the concierge’s cave, came a well-known voice: ‘“ Monsieur Gustave! Mon- sieur Gustave! ”’ The summons hadn’t come! With the Day of Judgment here and now and right in the cave on his doorstep, Monsieur Gustave turned tail and fled. And Madame la Concierge, carrying Mademoiselle Sophie’s Maman’s bonne 4a tout faire’s Maidenhair Fern—much inferior to her own fine specimen in Monsieur Gustave’s care, of course, but still quite tolerable in an impoverished sort of way—went. i - dias ad et 8 8) comicbooks.com.