The Argosy, August 1914 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

NOBODY LOVES A. LOSER. sent a red-hot current of agony into his throbbing head. So for a moment longer he lay trying to remember what had happened. A moving-picture film of barrooms and chance acquaintances was about all he could bring to mind. He recalled only too sharply his encounter with Vesta Dawn, the seizure of mad rage and mortification which had ensued. He could even summon up a mental pic- ture of the saloon where he had started to drown consciousness. Then there had been two men— what were their names? Oh, yes— Larry and Harry they had styled them- selves, professing brotherly sympathy with his mood. Rough fellows they had been, but kind-hearted to a fault. They had stood by even to the length of defending him against the insinua- ting advances of others who, they had pointed out, entertained unworthy de- signs upon his negotiable property. He was unable to tell whether his wanderings with Larry and Harry had been a matter of hours only, or of days. They had culminated in a quarrel, for which doubtless his own irresponsible self had been to blame. It had come about when Harry had suggested, even insisted, that he should be entrusted with guardianship of Jack’s money. He remembered putting up his fists to Harry. Then something had landed heavily on his head, and the moving- picture reel came to an abrupt end. He hoped he had not hurt his new friend. More cautiously the second time he opened his eyes, the merest crack at first, until his optic nerves accommo- dated themselves to the light. An in- stant later his lids flew wide with aston- ishment. The room, or wherever it was he lay, was unlike anything he had even seen before. Ceiling, sides, and bottom re- vealed a monotonous expanse of black, begrimed beams and rough boarding. It was without windows, but a gray, uncertain light sifted in from over- head at a point some distance away. The next conscious sensation was of 1] a tremendous pitching and rolling. As his senses slowly awakened he realized what it meant. He was at sea. But how could this have happened? And what manner of craft was it in which he found himself afloat? Not a naval vessel, certainly. Even the coal-bunkers of a man-of-war would have been cleaner than this. Lifting himself to a sitting posture with torturing effort, he found that he had lain wedged between two heavy stringers, which explained why the tossing of the vessel had been mini- mized for him hitherto. His eyes fell on his hands. They were blacker than any negro’s, and he had a feeling his face was as well. : Could he have been shanghaied? It was a possibility, yet unlikely. More- over, his acquaintance with the ways of the sea told him that had such an experience fallen to his lot he would now be on a bunk in the forecastle instead of in an empty and abandoned hold, as was evidently his plight. Also —his brain clearing by the minute— coal-carrying schooners did not shang- hai their crews. He struggled with a painful expen- diture of energy to his feet, only to be thrown with a bump which jarred him from top to toe. The pitching of the vessel in which he was confined in- dicated tempestuous seas. The jolt of the fall turned him a little faint. By way of gaining time, he went through his pockets and took inventory of his possessions. In his in- ner pocket, where he had placed it with a fatuous thought that it would lie close to his heart, was a note from Vesta Dawn received the day before his big fight. : Without rereading it, he tore the message into tiny bits, which when he had tossed them aside, lay like snow- flakes on the black flooring. The very touch of the paper induced a nausea of self-contempt and black rage. His cheek smarted again with the blow of her open palm. He saw him- self sprawled in the middle of Broad- COMMICOOOKS (C@)