The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

476 _ of punch is what we’re after. Blaisdell, the chap who’s retiring and coming home, will stay four months with you and break you in to everything, and you'll have his quar- ters and his two native servants—both items charged against the firm, by the way. It’s the chance of a lifetime, boy, and I’m glad to®see you getting it. You sail to- night!” ita” “You go straight through to Bingalong on the old Angoria—Pier 1o—through the Panama Canal, if it happens to be working at the time, and around the Horn if it isn’t. The sea trip itself will make a new man of you—gad! how I wish I could step into your shoes, Darton!” Mr. Bostwick ex- claimed heartily, as he rose. ‘“‘Now get to your packing!” “Wait!” Jimmy Darton cried. Ehe “T_T’m not going to any Binga—what- ever it is! If you want to step into my shoes, go ahead and step and be a new man yourself, I—I—why, what in blazes should I go to the Binga place for? I’m satisfied here and I haven’t made as little as thirty- five hundred for four years now!” “Huh?” gasped Mr. Bostwick, and un- adulterated amazement shot from his eyes. “T’m—awfully obliged if it’s a real op- portunity that you’re offering me and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but my humble idea of the last thing in the world to do is getting aboard a worn-out tramp steamer and going to the Philippine Islands. | ak “Say! Are you—are you turning down our offer?” Mr. Bostwick asked thickly. “Thanking you—yes! And now tell me about Sibyl! Did she—” “Why—why—drat Sibyl!” stammered Mr. Bostwick. ‘I—upon my soul and honor, I’ve never been so offended in my life! I—oh, see here, Darton; don’t be an idiot. We’ve had brilliant, experienced men hounding us for this job, a month or more, and we have saved it for you. Don’t let pique over a fool girl’s jilting knock your perspective all to flinders. Get to your packing, lad! Don’t sulk; just rip into Bingalong and a big future!”’ His lightning squint shot encouragingly at Darton; he patted Darton’s shoulder, too, which was quite unlike him; but Dar- ton only sank deeper into his chair and smiled drearily and shook his head. Second by second as the fact of Sibyl’s loss drilled THE ARGOSY. into his understanding, the very soul within him was crumpling. “See here, Darton!” Mr. Bostwick snapped. “Are you turning it down flatly?” ‘As flatly as I know how,” muttered the younger man. | Then he hunched down farther and sighed so that the whole chair shook, while Mr. Bostwick glared at him. He did not glance up, even when with the briefest of farewells, Mr. Bostwick stamped out. Only a Morely’s soothing touch did he rouse a it. ‘‘Never mind, old chap,” the artist said. “Tf she was flighty and fickle as all that, it’s a good thing you didn’t get her.” Darton gazed at him dully—and then nodded a request that Morely open the foor, for some one was knocking. Dully, too, he watched the artist take a some- what battered paper package from the bell- boy; and his thick, uninterested voice asked: “What was it, Tom?” ‘“‘Er—a bunch of rejected manuscript, I guess, from the looks of the thing,” Morely answered. ‘‘Here’s a printed rejection slip, with something written on the margin. It says: ‘Pretty rotten after all on second reading; most of it has been done before. Park.’ That’s all, except—” “Park!” Darton howled suddenly, and the sound was almost animal. ‘“What— what is the manuscript? It can’t be—” “Tt’s the—the ‘Fate of the World,’ ” Morely said very gently indeed. CHAPTER IL. DRIVEN MAD. |? is a difficult thing to maintain one’s poise when one has acquired a fortune, lost a bride and seen one’s most serious bit of work scorned, all in a matter of half an hour. Jimmy Darton; Fate’s newest toy, made no attempt whatever to keep his men- tal balance. With another dread sound, which was partly the same how] and partly a new roar of fury, he bounded from his comfortable chair and landed beside the table on which his friend had placed a certain thick pile of smudgy, typewritten sheets. An impolite snatch and he had acquired the rejection slip and was glaring at it with burning eyes. “Trimmer Film Corporation—yes, and that’s Park’s writing, too! It’s a fact, EOPMICLOOOKS (C@)