The Argosy, Vol. 61, No. 4 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

666 cry. He went in, and found the baby- - girl weeping on the floor. Mr. Alger did a very characteristic thing. He kicked the bottom out of- a chair, shook his fist in the air, and said, ‘“Damn!” very loudly. This seemed to please Miss Marjorie. She stopped cry- ing, and chuckled at him. He picked her up, wrapped her in his overcoat, and carried her home, where she had con- tinued to laugh at what she called his “tantrums” for sixteen years. Even Dexter had to: admit that Mar- jorie was not to be blamed for deferring to her uncle’s request regarding the mar- riage. He understood that Jeremiah Alger was a queer but decidedly kind- hearted man. And the misfortune of her babyhood was enough for the girl to suffer. Should he, Dexter asked himself, run the risk of bringing more trouble to her door? He lay and tossed, and thought about the thousand-dollar note rolled up in the spill in the vase on the mantelpiece. CHAPTER V. DEEPER IN IT. SOMEWHERE toward morning he fell asleep. And, it being so late an hour after so wearisome a day, he was only awakened at last by a heavy thumping at his door. “Get up! Get up, Mr. Dexter! It’s a quarter to eight!’ cried the landlady’s voice. And his train left for Selsburg in half an hour! He bounded out upon the floor and began to rush on his clothing. Not a thought at the moment for what had happened to him the day before. He had forgotten the trouble of mind he suffered before dropping to sleep; he did not remember the thousand-dollar bill. His mind was only taken up’ with the exasperation of the moment, dealing with the fact that he had overslept. He might even be ‘called on the carpet’ by the division superintendent, known among the employees of the southern branch of the F., L. and C. as ‘‘ Old Helen Blazes,” though there was nothing at all feminine about the man himself. But then, when he was half dressed, THE ARGOSY. the whole remembrance of his yesterday afternoon’s trip, and what had grown out of it, flooded Dexter’s mind. He rushed to the mantelpiece and seized the vase of spills. He tumbled them all out on the table. In which had he rolled up that precious engraved paper? He had forgotten the color of it even, and they all looked about of a size. With trembling fingers he unscrewed first one and then another of the spirals of paper. Actually, he could not get at the right one. The fear that had gripped him in the night when he had hidden the bank-note again shook him. Suppose somebody had spied upon him in some way when he rolled up the money in the spill, and had, after he was asleep, crept in and stolen it? Dexter tottered to the door. It was still locked. [he window could only be opened a few inches from the top, and was nailed. Of course a robbery was out of the question. He went back to the table, picked up another of the paper spirals, unrolled it, and the precious green and yellow docu- ment dropped out. He pounced upon it with a cry of delight. Then he thought: “How shall I keep it with me to-day, and run no chance of losing it?” He was in his undershirt and trousers, and, looking down at his chest, he saw that the hem of the shirt was ripped. This made a tiny pocket, and in a mo- ment the crackly. bill was tucked into it, and he fastened the ripped seam with a pin. Then he hustled into the rest of his clothing,.dashed some water into his face and eyes, combed out his thick hair, and ran every step to the station. Although he went without his break- fast, he got a call-down from Harry Con- nors. “You will have to cut out that girl of yours, Deck, if it’s going to keep you up all night,” remarked the conductor. ‘You look as though you hadn’t slept for a week. Get a brace on you, my dear man.” Dexter might have felt hurt by this had he not had so much else of impor- tance on his mind just then. Actually. the place where the thousand-dollar bill lay on his chest seemed as hot as fire. CO OO Cc (©