The Argosy, October 1906 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

€ —a ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT. heart. Horace could~ not believe that Harry Paine was a_ thief. ‘IT guess the old name sticks to me whether: I want to shake it or not,” ruminated the young man, with a rather rueful smile. “It’s plain that I was a ‘silly goose’ to. give Paine or any one else such a chance ; ;-and I suppose I’m a ‘silly goose’ now to think for a minute that he didn’t take advantage of it. But Harry: Paine——_ Why, if he betrayed me like that, he-is a worse traitor than _ Benedict Arnold!”’ CHAPTER VIii. ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT. . = : Up the-deep, narrow canon of lower Broadway trudged Horace as he pur- sued his meditations, on past those tow- ‘ering piles of marble and granite which -Titory he had come to invade. a . 7 spell ‘millions’ in every stone of their sculptured facades. A grim, ironie- smile flitted. across his lips as*he recalled that this was the’ ter- He re- membered his boastful remark to- Harry Paine: ‘Pll make even*that-big- town of yours: know that-I’ve been in it!”’ It had not séemed so. difficult then, -- when he was surveying the field in far- ‘Off perspective; but now that he was » directly under.the walls of these frown- ing fortresses, behind which wealth sat guarded and entrenched, he saw it as a very different, and indeed a well-nigh hopeless proposition: As well expect agsingle Japanese in- fantryman to scale and take the heights of Port Arthur alone.and unaided. All the daring and all the. desperate en- deavor in. the world avails a man little unless he has the resources and. supplies “to back up his ambition. —~<No; it was no longer a question with him, Horace bitterly reflected, of chal- | lenging to combat the doughty leaders of capital. His task was the more ex- acting one of’ wringing from the grudg- ing palm-of this great city'a stipend for the bare necessities of existence. He must join the army of humble toilers who. earn théir bread in the sweat of their brows. More than that, he had to do so at once. Even granting that ey Paine had ‘ not dealt treacherously by him, and that — he would eventually recover-his money, a very considerable time must inevitably elapse before any such happy culmina- tion to his difficulties; nor would it do to bank-upon so extremely provenance a solution. In the meantime, what was he to do? It is a question which has fretted many a capable man in the. full -possession of his powers, and bulwarked with influen- tial friends and connections. How much “more, then, might it strike terror to the soul of. Horace Clarkson, crippled, for-* bidden te use his right hand for a period of three. weeks, absolltely friendless. as atiy being who ever stepped this planet, a stranger in a strange city, and with ex- actly twenty cents to his name? ~‘ Rather a mess to get into, isn’t it?” he commented whimsically after he had completed enumerating to himself the disabilities under which he was laboring. “ Benjamin .Franklin “with his loaf of bread and Dick. Whittington with, his. | 407 . cat “had what one might call a snap in? : comparison td it.’ His manner, however, as he passed this’ observation was neither gloomy nor - dejected ; for it was. characteristic of the man, now that he knew the worst which could befall him, and.was brought face to. face with an apparently hopeless ‘proposition, that his optimism should rise, in a corresponding degree. He was like one of. those prize- i cee who are said to be“ greedy for punish- ment’’; and the harder the blows Fate poured in upon him, the more stoutly did he hit back. Nevertheless, he could not disguise 3 from himself the precarious nature of his position; and his mind;°as. he walked along, was busily engaged in. evolving some plan of escape from his dilemma. He “had by this time reached Union Square in his progress up New York's great artery of trade; and as he was footsore and weary from his unaccus- tomed tramp, he turned in to rest and to continue his meditations - under the grateful shade of the trees. Investing one of his scanty store - of nickels in a bunch \of the day’s papers, he sought a seat on a bench near the fountain and eagerly turned to the columns headed ‘ Male Help Wanted.” ami SS Eboo (E(@) (E(o) m