The Argosy, December 1905 — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

154 your credit a year from to-day, and you can have the girl, and my blessing along with her.” The daughter had clapped her hands delightedly when she heard of this mu- nificent offer. “Oh, how good of him,” she cried. “Why, Seth, any one so bright as you ought easily to earn that little amount in half the time.” But. Thurlow himself was by no means so sure. It required no extended calculations on his part to convince him that at five dollars a column, his present market rate, he would have to sling ink at a considerably increased horse- power to come within even striking distance of his goal; nor would stories in the magazines at a cent a word suffice to help him much. No, he decided emphatically, liter- ature was not the path to lead him to his heart’s desire. Bank robbery or high finance seemed the gt Berane by which he could attain his purpose, and he was not perfectly sure that his talents and training fitted him to shine in either sphere. Then, in what direction should he strike out? ; It was a serious question, for with the time at his disposal he fully realized that he could make no false essays. He must hit the bull’s-eye at the first trial. Had it been one of the heroes of his pen, he thought enviously, there would have been no such trouble. Opportuni- ties were always turning up to help them out of any hole they got into. In fact, he had found it harder to keep them “broke” for the time necessary to the exigencies of the stery than to rehabilitate them handsomely when the proper moment arrived. But in actual practise it appeared a very different proposition. He had no old piece of land to blos- som out suddenly with oil wells and gold mines; no forgotten relatives to die op- portunely and leave him a fortune, no laboriously worked out invention to spring upon an unsuspecting public. He could not even think of any shrewd trick to work upon the astute B. B., and thus gain credit for great business sense and perspicacity. THE ARGOSY. — “In short, so far as I can see,” he finally observed dejectedly to himself, “T have about as much show of cleaning up that hundred thousand as a black man has to be elected governor of Texas.” By this time, too, he had cudgeled his brains until he had brought on a racking headache, so he repaired to a neigh- boring barber shop in order to seek relief in a good shampoo. It was while he lounged luxuriously in the red plush chair and had his poll rubbed into a foaming lather that the way became suddenly clear to him. ‘ Courcel, the misanthropic little Frenchman who ran the place, was as usual inveighing against the limitations of his lot. “T’ave not ze chance, m’sieu,” he was saying bitterly. “ Ze male branches of my profession, ze shave an’ ze ’air cut, to which I am condemn’ Bah! Zey do not appeal to me. Ket ees always ze same: clip, clip; scrape, scrape. But wiz ze ladies eet ees ver’ different. Zare one can consult individuality; one has inspiration to guide him; one can be an artist-t-t! “ Ah, m’sieu,” he sighed, “ eet ees ze dream of my life to establish a fashion- _able ’air-dressing parlor in New York. I ’ave ”—sinking his voice to a thrilling whisper—“ a ‘ wave’ which, if once in- troduced, would make all ozzer styles of coiffure, even ze pompadour—w’at ,you call it?—go way to ze back an’ sit down. But ”—with an expressive shrug of his shoulders—* w’at will you? I ’ave not ze money, nor ze pull to get in wiz ze Four ’Undred, an’ I will not waste my wave on canatlle.” ‘Thurlow, who had been listening hitherto with languid interest, suddenly roused up with such celerity that he sent a spatter of tiny soap bubbles flying out from his head like a nimbus. “Do you really think this wave of yours would make a hit with swell society, Courcel?” he asked excitedly. “Make ze it? Why, m’sieu, in seex mont’ time you see nossing else on Feeft? Avenoo! ” Thurlow had not sat at the feet of press agents and publicity makers for nothing, GO NOOKS (C@