The Argosy, April 1912 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

Between Iwo / ae a CHAPTER I. THE MAN WHO WASN’T CALLED. = ONFOUND it! C a nasty hole!” Oliver Hazard would have smiled, perhaps, if some one had informed him that the breaking of his watch-crystal would in very truth put him into a hole of sinister depths, with death itself lurking not far off. Hazard, who was given to superlatives, meant nothing more by this remark than that he would be obliged to run into the watchmaker’s and have a new crystal put in the watch, which he had just accidentally dropped. As it happened, however, his exclama- tion was in every way justified. That little timepiece lying on the floor at his feet, face downward, little chips and jagged points of the crystal scattered about it, was to mean much more to Hazard than a mere trip to the jeweler’s. But no one told him anything of the sort; and so, shaking his fist in the direction of the office below, he got down on his knees to search for the gold rim which had rolled out of sight. Hazard had dropped the watch as: the result of nervous irritation, engendered by the fact that the clerk of the hotel where he lived had failed to have him awakened at seven forty-five so that he might keep an appointment at the office at ten. Left to himself, he had slumbered until eight- twenty. Then, to complicate matters, his That puts me in 66 watch had slipped from his fingers as he hurriedly dressed. Of all days this was the most awkward for Hazard to be without his watch. He had an unusually large number of appoint- ments to keep, and a train to catch in the afternoon. “Hang it all!” he muttered. “Tl, cut breakfast and take in the watchmaker’s in- stead. And I’ll make it up at luncheon.” With angry mutterings, Hazard pawed the floor, and at length retrieved the miss- ing rim. Then he clapped the watch to his ear and lost something of his febrile in- tensity when he found it ticking away as serenely as ever. In the course of making his toilet, how- ever, he once again succeeded in lashing himself to a fine pitch of mental unrest as various things went wrong. First he gashed himself deeply with his razor. ‘Then he droppéd his collar-button. Finally he had to search for his left shoe. But at length he was ready for the street. Holding his watch in one hand, his stick in the other, he descended by the elevator to the office, where he vented his spleen against the night-clerk upon the hapless manager. ‘The manager was a good manager in many ways. One of these ways was an ability to judge human nature. ed Hazard with sympathy. “IT appreciate your position, Mr. Haz- ard,” he said. “It is really too bad. But are you sure no one knocked on your door?” “Sure!” Hazard glared at the mana- CONMUC He regard- DOOK CO