The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

716 The cigar snatched from his hand, some- thing that crinkled thrust in its place, and Charles Dempster found himself, with fallen jaw and starting eyes, jammed up against the doorway by the hurried departure of the stranger. Why should any man, spurred even by the most wild and uncontrollable craving for a smoke, in a cigar store, where there are hundreds, thousands of other cigars all around him, be satisfied with only one cigar, and that in no way unusual—except for its price? And this fellow had doubled that. One dollar for a cigar was going some. Having taken in his quite ordinary appearance at that fleeting glance, Mr. Haviland recalled that the man had not looked as though he was used to buying dollar cigars. Still, this might be the explanation of the incident. F Perhaps he had hurriedly left a wealthy client in some of the surrounding sky- scrapers. Whe man of means might be in the habit of smoking this single brand. Finding that he was without a cigar, his host had dashed forth to buy him one, only to see Mr. Haviland purchase from under his very nose the last one of that particular brand in the store. To secure it he had been willing to pay him a dollar, anything, indeed, since its possession would help him into the good graces of the person he was eager to please. Yes, probably after all, that was it! Now, looking down at his hand, Mr. Haviland suryeyed the crumpled bill which had been thrust there. He didn’t want the thing. An Italian lad, peddling flowers, who passed just then, spying the vacant lapel of the gentleman standing in the door- way, selected a gardenia from the tray on his arm and held it up. Stepping down on the sidewalk, Mr. Haviland accepted the boutonniere, affixing it to his coat. Dropping the dollar on the tray, with the reflection that such gener- osity had cost him scarcely anything, he told the youth to keep the change. Promptly out of the stream of pedes- trians along the pavement sidestepped a second stranger into his path. “That flower you’ve got there,” began this man abruptly—‘will you sell it to me?” ; Sharply Mr. Haviland drew back. Star- ing into the somewhat coarse, beefy face of the person thus bluntly confronting him, THE ARGOSY. his eyes widened while his brows knit in amazement. He raised a hand slowly to the gardenia he had just put on. : “Do you mean,” he ejaculated—“this flower?” 3 The stocky man jerked his head in assent, “T know it’s a cheeky thing to ask,” he went on. “But that gardenia I’ve just got to have. * As you see,” and he held out his lapel, “I haven’t any.” Charles Dempster aside. “There,” said he, revealing the vendor behind him, “is a whole trayful of these gardenias. Pray help yourself, and let me go on—” “The one you have’s the one I want,” in- sisted the other. “I’m willing to give you twice what you paid for it—” “You are?” quickly Mr. Haviland caught him up. His eyes were sparkling. ‘Then you'll make a very bad bargain, indeed. It may interest you to know that I’ve just given the boy a dollar for this flower.” In silence, the thick-set man produced his pocketbook and fumbled in it. “Here!” Before the proffered bills in this stranger’s hand, Mr. Haviland again drew back. “No!” he blurted. “No—really! I don’t wish to sell!” The man’s arm shot out. Rudely he tore the flower from Mr. Haviland’s coat, at the same time pressing the two greenbacks into promptly stepped his hand. And the next moment he had stepped back into the moving crowd, to be swept along in its course from sight. Well, what was the explanation for this? Charles Dempster moved on down the pavement. By this last incident, his mind was left blank. He came to a halt, mechanically, in front of the imposing entrance of Gortley’s, the jewelers. He lifted one hand in a dazed gesture to his brow. Oh, yes! This was where he was going to buy his wedding ‘ring. Entering the store, Mr. Haviland gave the desired size and style of the ring he wanted to the salesman at the proper coun- ter. He paid for it and waited for the small package to be wrapped up. And then he felt a touch at his elbow. “Say,” a tall, rawboned young man, with a prominent Adam’s apple rising out of a | CORMMICLOOKS (C@)