The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

THE GILDED TRAP. “ All right. Wish I’d had a thousand of it. I was so deep in copper that I couldn’t take more than twenty-odd shares. Looks now as if I’d got in at the top of copper instead of the bottom. Serves me right for thinking I was wiser than anybody else. But Ill get out whole, I think.”’ Bruce glanced at his program. The act on the stage was the last. People were making the preliminary moves of de- parture. He got up quickly. He wanted a look at the two men behind him more than he wanted anything he had seen or would see of the show. As he left the seat he managed to sweep them with a backward glance that ap- peared to seek the exits. They were plump, prosperous-looking men, men of Wheelock’s type. Bruce de- cided that they would do for him. He got outside and walked nearly half-way to his boarding-place for the purpose of assisting his brain in planning a course o1 action. He was ill-prepared for availing him- self of a tip, he decided. He hardly knew how to go about the purchase of any stock, save as he had done it before. It oc- curred to him that he might get Chase’s address at the club. American Chrome had jumped a point before closing. The time to get in would be the moment of opening. Should he have to wait an hour or two before he could get off, Heaven only knew how much he might lose. Ase: Yet he was more than half afraid to put matters to the touch. He finally de- cided to begin with Wheelock. By calling up the cashier he could get a little advice, and incidentally return the favor done him to the extent of giving Wheelock the opportunity of the tip. All he got for his money on the long- distance call to White Plains Manor was a conversation with the same foreign- voiced Katy who had failed to deliver his message ten days before. The Wheelocks, it seemed, were right in New York, pre- sumably at some roof-garden show. 303 Bruce stood puzzled. He did not like to call up Chase without giving the broker’s manager some action for his trouble. It was after eleven. He con- cluded that there would be more and better time for calling up to-morrow morning. He could get Wheelock then, too. He went to the boarding-house and to bed. He made up his mind to move to the club immediately. He must be in touch with Chase, must be where he could be reached by telephone at least out of busi- ness hours. He had plenty of time to make up his mind. Sleep was long in coming. He was dreaming even with his eyes open, dreaming of motor-cars, dancing, good dinners in nice eating-places, a decent room in a decent place—all the things he. told himself he had missed long enough already. He saw himself in Wheelock’s office. . While he was about it, he considered the possibility of his becoming the president of the bank. Stranger things, he told him- self, had happened. There was but one discordant feature in the pictures he painted for himself. It was so much easier and pleasanter to imagine motoring, dancing, dining with Jessie Wheelock than with Ellen Ran- dolph. He tried quite resolutely to fit Ellen into the pictures. She was not made for them. She more than half spoiled his enthusiasm for the whole lay-out. But of course he would marry Ellen. He was not thinking of. marriage, any- how. Jessie Wheelock was not thinking of marriage. She was merely admitting him to the circle of those she regarded fit to flirt with. Under the circumstances, he hoped she had nothing serious in her pretty head about him. If she had—he was quite sure she was one of those passionate natures who would take disappointment in love very much to heart. He hated to think of it. So he thought of the business of to- COMMICOOOKS (C@)