The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

72 smoothly and silently through space over rolling hills and through woods, past beautiful little suburbs and big suburban estates, glimpsing here and there bits of placid water on which danced motor- boats and a few sailing yachts, grass and flowers and shade and soft breeze and motion—all blended into comfort raised to sheer luxury. At lunch-time Evans had begun to want a club. Now he found himself wondering if he might not, somehow, some time; own an automobile. They stopped at a little road-house somewhere, and Wheelock insisted that a cocktail was one of the things Bruce need- ed for the general bracing of his health. It set his ears ringing a little and his brain reeling just enough to add to the pleasure of the motion in the car as they turned back from the Sound shore and headed westward. He was having hard work to keep from falling into a blissful doze, when— “George! How can folks keep alive in a swamp like this?” grunted his com- panion. Bruce looked about. They had gone down a slight incline into a rather marshy hollow, then almost imperceptibly up. On the soft, sandy soil were tiny houses, with dark-faced babies playing on door-steps in front of yards so poorly fenced that chickens and a stray goat were scurrying from before the purring motor. Then Bruce’s look became a stare. It was—no—yes— There was the very spot Ellen had se- lected -for their future home! Bruce shuddered. He had never thought of the swamp before; he knew in a moment that he had not seen it, since the road before him was the one over which he had always come from the station. How could folks live-in such a place? How could he ever bring himself to it? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Other men made money—Wheelock, Mercer—got it ~ somehow. Certainly he could aspire to Mercer’s _ ingly THE ARGOSY. position. Why not to Wheelock’s? Why should he imagine that he must always remain a_ sixteen-dollar bookkeeper? There was plenty of money in the world. Surely he was capable of earning some of it. If something didn’t turn up for him in the Ironclad, he would chuck the place and look for another. And Ellen? She was all wrong about going out to that swamp. Chickens, a muddy garden! Bah! If she wanted that sort of thing, he didn’t; she would have to learn to want more; she would have to wait until he could provide more. “Well, here we are. Did you enjoy the ride? By George! you’ve got better color already.” They had swung up a little drive before the square, white stucco house with the red tile roof which Evans had once visited as an errand-man. Now he was to be a guest! “Come up-stairs and tidy up a bit,” invited his host. The stairs were so hard and smooth they seemed dangerously _ slippery. Wheelock threw open a door into a bed- room which might have been no more than fourteen feet square, but seemed to Evans a sinful waste of space around the single bed in it. “You can use my bathroom—I’ll go to the other one,” Wheelock said, and in- dicated what amazed Evans still further, the first tiled bathroom he had ever seen in a private residence. What, he wondered, must it be to have such luxuries for daily use? It seemed to him that the very cold water was of a quality more delightful and bracing than at Mrs. Lundrum’s. But that was due to the afterthirst and slight fever of the cocktail, though he did not know it. A glance into the full-length mirror rather shocked him. He had never so fully realized how ill-clad he was. His coat was shiny at the elbows; his trousers bagged at the knees; his tie was frayed, his collar— . He hastily took that off and painstak- turned it inside out. Thank CORMEOOOKS (E@)