Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

LUCK! wouldn't have been anything left but debts. And I’m thinking that $750 in cash to your credit on the day you’re discharged from the army is just $750 better than any other doughboy—except the lucky crap- shooters. Anyway, Bill had that $750, and old Luck saw to it that it was even more than he needed. Yes, Lady Luck just led him right by the hand up to Opportunity, made him right well acquainted with that lady all of a sudden, and let him cash in on the ac- quaintanceship inside of one day—and he only had to risk $500 of his $750. Luck? Why, I believe that if Bill was to drop from the edge of a cliff, a tree branch or something like that would catch him on the way down, and he’d find when he re- covered from the shock that he’d landed at ‘the entrance ‘to a lost gold-mine. This last thing that happened to Bill is just about as lucky as that. I’m going to tell you about it, and I’ll bet you’ll say that Bill’s the luckiest man in the world. Bill’s latest started with him looking at the figures in a brand-new bank-book, and sighing while he looked. The figures were most painfully limited as to number of items, and they disclosed that the Twen- tieth National Bank had on deposit to the credit of one William P. Lozier a total of $750. Billy sighed again as he read the solitary line once more for the fifty-first or fifty-second time. ‘T’m not kicking about not having any more money left out of the wreck,” he said. “I’m kicking because it means so many more months before I'll be able to come to your proud father and demand a show-down.” The person he addressed nodded her head sagely and pensively. I've known Lucy Clarke even longer than I’ve known Bill, and I know very well how she looked. ‘But why do we let it mean months?” she asked, after a bit more of that pensive nodding. ‘‘ I know father’s unreasonable, but that seems to me all the more reason why we ought to show him he’s wrong.” “T’ve been turning my mind inside out without finding a single idea,” returned Bill. 313 “ Well, now, let’s see, Billy,” said Lucy. “It was the war that got you started, and It was the war that took your money away. Why shouldn’t it be the war that Should give it back again?” Talk about your lucky ones! Perhaps you see now why it was that I had Bill drawing to hearts in that imaginary poker hand a minute or two ago. When a man can draw a girl with a head on her shoul- ders like Lucy, a girl not only to love him, but to comfort and counsel him as well, it seems to me that hearts—well, you know what I mean. ‘“Why, I suppose it might,” answered Bill, considering Lucy’s question a minute or two before he spoke. “ And yet I don’t see how even that is going to permit any shorter period than the months that I men- tioned.” ‘ Tather’s been talking a lot about ma- chinery! lately,” went on Lucy. ‘‘ There’s a shortage of many.kinds of machines, fa- ther says, and prices have doubled and tripled and even more for second-hand machinery. I should think a man could go around and find valuable pieces of machinery now in just the same way that the collectors of antiques are still able to discover priceless old pieces in country farmhouses.” ‘““ Maybe one could, Lucy, but what do I know about machinery?” From there the conversation turned off into more intimate grooves. Although Bill didn’t know it at the time, old Mrs. Luck thad planted the germ of an idea in his head so that when Opportunity came along, a few hours later, Bill didn’t have any difficulty about recognizing her. This conversation with Lucy took place on the evening of the day that Bill was mustered out. Next morning Bill got up at the same time I did—-which means early—and an- nounced ‘that he was going over to Long Island City after breakfast. “Charley Edwards is over there,” he explained, “in some sort of a plant where they make bakers’ machinery. Maybe ke can tell me something about this machinery stuff that Lucy was elucidating last night.” Just like that it was—no plan or any- —_—- thing like it. comicbooks.c©