Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

at CROSSES OF STEEL. rouse himself and go to bed and the dreamless sleep that would fit him for to- morrow’s hard realities. So he planned as he carefully slit open the envelope’ with his knife, while the phonograph softly began Gltick’s “ Jocelyn Berceuse.”” He grinned happily over the first page of the scrawled letter. Harry Chixon was guying at something he’d reach on the next page. Then plans, dreams, the chair on which he had reclined, and the record on the phonograph all seemed to smash at once. He was standing beside the table, his huge frame humped over to see the page under the lamp. The big, hard lines of brow and mouth were deeper than ever. The hands that held the tinted sheets might have been gripping the sides of a ten-ton beam in an effort to save it from falling as it slipped in the chains. He did not read them. He dashed through the lines until he found the two words he sought. Then he flung them all to the floor, kicked the broken chair from his path, snatched the telephone from his desk. “Get the Guayaquil quick!” he snapped into the instrument the instant it clicked in his ear. As he waited, his scowling face seeming to threaten time itself for keeping him its short minutes— God! God! Her!” he muttered thickly, fiercely. Then the hard features softened into a smile that might have blessed a mother’s face as she soothed the cries of a toddling babe still frightened at having been lost. CHAPTER III. STEADY! ERE is the trifling, jesting, jollying letter of the man who painted pretty faces to the’ man wko builded giant bridges—the letter that was already attain- ing the results universal to the attempts of witty men to get funny with strong ones: You BIG, UNMITIGATED BLUFF: You are caught at last with the goods! You are called for a show-down; you are shown up in your naked falseness! Your cable - office— _ mask and armor of steel are riven! The beans are spilled. The cat is out. We see, know what you are! Only a week ago I was laughing over that sentimental ending you always wind a letter up with, about our den and music and gas-logs. And my faith in you, my be- lief that you were what you seemed, led me to insinuate to the wife of my bosom that your real idea of a homy, musical evening. would be to sit on the end of a bridge- girder by arc-light, a fifteen-minute tumble above some swollen torrent, and hear the steam-riveters’ soprano drown out the bass roar of the engines. But you hadn’t fooled her so entirely. She suspected you even then of being softer than you try to look and act. Thank ep I didn’t bet anything on you. For now, oh, where would I be if I had backed that rock-hewn face of yours for the price of tickets to the opera? Why, I’d be listening to the opera. This morning Stella found out it is our maid’s—I mean working housekeeper’s— birthday. And a wonder of a housekeeper she is. Only she was impossible to explain in the réle. She wasn’t a servant; didn’t know how to be a servant; and she wasn't one of those down-and-out foreign ladies who do that sort of thing over here. But she did all the things we had hired other servants to do about a hundred times better than any other ever tried to do them for us; and didn’t do any of the things most of them tried to do to us. So we were tickled to death to discover her birthday in time. J had never been able to get up the nerve to offer her a tip. Here was our chance to show appreciation! You may not believe it, but I had a whole ten-dollar bill. We decided to present it to our paragon, and the day off in which to spend it. The lady had gone out for the morning marketing. It was Stella’s idea to pin a wish for many returns to the bill and place it on her bureau, where she would find it when she went to dress for the day. Stella slipped into her room—the first time she had ever been in it since this lady took possession of it. The next I heard was a scream from my spouse. I rushed to render first aid. There stood Stella, paralyzed with astonishment, in- articulate, speechless with amaze. I looked where she was looking—right in the place of honor under the center of the mirror on her bureau. paralysis. For—I was looking at you. Yes, you! A nice little snapshot it was, taken about six or seven years ago, I should judge. And you were looking just about as rock-hewn, cold-rolled, case-hardened, steel-ly indifferent as a wop tenor in love with the soprano, Eomichboo And I caught the > Re pt EN ee Sn A 2 CA AE be ee = es a ; ee =e . wee i ee 7 = : = ~ : Fee ee — : > : Std