Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

SKID SMITH, SCHEME SPECIALIST. stock actor who would deliberately sum- mer in Lombard is ne good. I shall have to look into it, Jim. Nice girls are too scarce to throw away, and if you aren’t mea enough to win her from any one. named Eno, I'll see what I can do for you. I am a scheme specialist, and an expert at taking care of every one’s business but my own.” Which was true and partially explained why he had played forty-one en- gagements in two years. ‘Jim did not like the idea at ail, but Skid laughed at him, asked him if he wanted Aan Temple to ruin her young life, and imsisted on meeting Mr. Eno that very night. He found the latter a tall, good- leaking, flamboyant individual, with num- ber twelve shoes, a palm beach sait, black, curly heir, and a restless mouth. “Nope; no good,” said Skid, alone once more with Jim. “ Why, I'd marry Ann myself rather than see her wrecked on the shoals of that Eno’s grossness—and I hawen’t seen her. You want her, don’t you, “ Absolutely. ” “ Well, then. we'll see what can be done. I'm astonished at you. You don’t deserve - her—a nice girl like that!” Skid lay awake half that night battling with his old friend’s problem, but no in-_ Spiration came. The aext morning, how- ever, he took Jim’s rowboat, rowed te the island, lay down on his back in the sand, and, after an hour or so, hit upon a likely scheme, if Jim would only agree to it. jim had a dandy little cottage at the up- per end of the lake, and Skid’s plan neces- sitated.a week-end party at the lake-end cottage, with Jim and himself as hosts to this Ann Temple and Bert Eno, and an- other charming young lady whem Skid had ‘im mind. Skid presumed that Ann had a mother, or some such encumbrance, who would be a perfectly lovely chaperon. He had an idea that such a week-end would prove enlightening to the deluded Ann, perticolarly if he could persuade Mae Barke to come on and give him a lift. Mae was, accarding to Skid, a little devil; good, but a devil, nevertheless, in- aeesuch as she persisted in innocently 681 vamping every male human being with whom she came in contact. She was a pretty, sprightly miss, who had soubretted with Skid in several companies, and was ‘now, he knew, sojourning with a sister in Dubuque. Mae possessed remarkable ability to lead men around by the nose. ' She was irresistible, and could have been married twice a week for the past four years without any difficulty whatever, had She so desired. She liked Skid immensely, because he was the only man in the world who did not like her and made no secret of it. Se, with his plan in mind, Skid rowed back to Lombard and succeeded, after an hour’s oratory, in persuading Jim Baker that nothing in the world would give him so much pleasure as to play host at his lake-end cottage to four people whom he did not in the least care to entertain. And so it happened that some days later Mrs. Temple and Ann and Mae Burke, with Jim and Bert and Skid Smith, fore- gathered at Jim’s cottage for several days of uninterrupted hilarity. Ann and Bert bad unsuspiciously grasped at the o nity to be isolated from the world fr charge for several days; Mama Témple bad come along in obedience to Ann’s command; and in response to Skid’s letter, explaining the situation, and begging her to come and enjoy herself in the happy task of restoring Ann to Jim Baker, Mae Burke had wired: What a lark. I will knock them dead. Which, translated, meant that if Bert could be true toe Ann over the week-end, he was a mest extraordinarily abnormal male human being, and deserving of even Ann. And Skid, who had seen Ann but ence, had concluded that could not be. The second time he saw Ann was the day she arrived at Jim’s cottage, and he at once reached another conclusion, namely: that Jim Baker was no more deserving of ber than was Bert Eno; and he wondered if, after all his travels, he had at last found the only woman in the world whom he could conscientiously allow to take care of the furnace and fry his morning eggs, sunay CONNICOOOKS CO