The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

486 prehensive smile at the new, still wet let-- tering: ‘“The American Committee for the Protection of Motion Picture Writers. En- trance.” But now sheer astonishment brought him to a standstill. Across the big anteroom a glittering ma- hogany rail stretched from wall to wall; in the narrow space between it and the door a boy of sixteen or seventeen, important in new gray livery, sat sternly at a shining mahogany table. Beyond the rail, deep chairs, settees of mahogany and green leather furnished the room luxuriously— yet not more luxuriously than the glimpse of the room beyond! In there stood the huge flattop Jimmy Darton had bought and more upholstered furniture, but the finishing touches were given to the whole affair by the thick Ori- ental carpet and the pretty girl so busily fitting new blotters to the desk pad. In the invisible region beyond typewriters pounded furiously; the pretty girl, with a final pat at the blotter, glanced at Mr. Morely and rustled off in their direction. Plainly, the American Committee, whatever its business might be, had settled down to business! The boy rose and eyed Morely accus- ingly. ‘“Whoojeh wanter see?” he demanded. “T__where’s Mr. Darton?” the. artist stammered, as he tried to open the gate in the railing. “He can’t see you unless you got an ap- pointment. Got one?” The artist nodded weakly. ‘“T_ah—yes. That is, I think I have,” he said. “Tell him that Mr. Morely is here.” The boy vanished. Thomas leaned on the railing and sought to absorb more of the incredible scene. The place might have been an ultra-pros- perous brokerage establishment of some kind or—he ceased speculating on what it might have been and remembered what it was: the office of a young man temporarily bereft of his senses. In the farther doorway the boy had ducked nimbly aside on his return trip, and Jimmy Darton, hair wild, was striding down on his old friend and demanding: “Where on earth have you been?” “Well, I—” “Say, ‘do you know that I’ve iiuphoticad half over New York to find you? I thought you’d been run down by a car, or something of the kind. I was just going to call up THE ARGOSY. Police Headquarters and have ’em canvass the hospitals!” “Well I—” ‘Well, never mind, so long as you’re here now. Got the book?” Mr. Darton hurtled on. ‘Yes, I see you have. Well, bring it in here, Tom—bring it in here quick! I’ve been waiting nearly two hours for that book!” He jerked open the gate and beckoned Morely to follow him through to the private office—and the artist obeyed with misgiv- ings of the direst kind. Tf Jimmy had been excited before, he was quite beside himself now; his eye had the queerest, faintest hint of glassiness and shot about with a wild, twitching movement that suggested a fanatic or a drug fiend. Through the next room they went and then through two more, each of the latter with its three bright girls at three typewriters— and as Darton beckoned his whole feminine flock to follow after, eight of them landed in the magnificent office that had been al- lotted to Thomas Morely! Jimmy Darton, his book on the desk and the mechanical device which held the leaves released, picked out section after section of typewritten pages and talked as he worked. “Tommy!” said he, incisively. ‘Get rid of that scared look and settle right down to business please! I want you to “help me by taking the fiction writers—the fiction writ~ ers, understand a ‘‘Er—I suppose so,” stammered the artist. “Go right down the list from start to fin- ish and dictate the name and address of every one more than fifty miles from New York—get the idea?”’ “No, I don’t!” Jimmy Darton restrained a visible desire to curse aloud in his impatience! “Tom,” said he, “my idea is that a letter mailed to- -morrow afternoon to anybody within fifty miles of New York will get to him the following morning, Thursday morn- ing. If they live farther off than that they’ll hear from the committee by night letter through the telegraph company—also on Thursday morning. I want everybody in the business to get his letter from the com- mittee, whether. written or telegraphed, on Thursday morning!” “Thursday morning! ” the artist repeated. “Now, dictate two “hundred of the names to one of the girls and then two hundred to the next and then two hundred to the next; if youw’re not at the end of this particular COPMICGLOOOKS ©