Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

642 aristocrat among New York’s fraternity of grait. Having elegantly but alertly traveled the distance of half a city block along the echo- ing marble, the Great Corvan selected a door inscribed with the gilded -name of the New Process Asphalt and Fuel Company, and entered it. Within, he bestowed a friendly, princely greeting upon the girl at - the telephone desk, and coolly passed her to invade the new and glittering offices ‘beyond. He hardly stayed his steps at the .desk outside the imposing private office at the rear to fling a question which was a -greeting to the boy who guarded the sanc- $ tum. ‘“ Mr. Wade?” he smiled. “Yair,” responded the -boy. And the ‘Great Corvan passed in. : Wade looked up with a sandonic genilality, natural to himself, from where he sat behind a cluttered desk which was almost mahog- any but looked more expensive. “ Hello, Dan!” he exclaimed heartily. “Come in. Everything’s fine. Smoke?” Corvan declined with a gesture, and be- stowed distinction upon the glittering new- ness of the little office. by sinking into an overstuffed leather chair and surveying the assembled furniture with a quiet smile. .The ‘smile curled his lips into the suggestion of irony. But when ‘iis roving gaze fell upon ‘the cold, hard bitten face of Wade, his partner, the smile became inscrutable. ‘’ Remember what I said last Saturday?” he asked. ‘ Here’s another one; look it over.” — He took from his pocket a newspaper clipping and handed ‘it to the other. As Wade, swinging back in his chair, examined the article, Corvan’s gaze darted with unaccustomed nervousness about the cluttered desk. It pounced upon a copy of the morning paper, and with a quick elance at the preoccupied Wade he picked it up to examine it with an inward excite- ‘ment which the cool serenity of his expres- sion did not betray. Wade tossed the scrap: of paper on the table. “-That’s nothing new!” he said in his . -machine gun voice. “TY knew they got Kennedy, and I knew they sent him up. “old dose.’’- dicks every - -Thursday down in Missouri.”, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Five years he got, just because the poor fool didn’t- know when a good thing was milked dry.” Corvan reappeared from behind the opened newspaper, but his eyes did not leave the sheet. “ Read that,” he said quietly; and Wade, following Corvan’s slim finger, read: CONFIDENCE MAN GETS PRISON TERM Post Office Inspector is Nemesis of Jugglers in Worthless Stock Spillane Goes to Atlanta Pén After which was described the nefarious manner in which one Spillane had created out of finest bond paper a concern that had manufactured nothing more lucrative than promises; and now the enterprise had come to grief. “That’s George Spillane,” said Corvan. There was in his eyes a peculiar glitter. The confidence man was not afraid; his immunity from panic was one of several traits that placed him alone in his sphere. But he had a premonition of evil; and it showed in his eyes. “J tell you, Wade, our graft is all to the merry as long as we draw trumps, But- when you turn up a dead one— ‘They’re taking George to At- lanta.” “ A piker!” Wade, consciously of coarser ‘fiber than his partner, made up for what he lacked in polish with a peculiar grim- ness of demeanor, a hardness derived from a hard life. “Spillane was a piker. He pulled the same old stuff, and got the same He leaned forward and pressed the weight of his granite personality upon the other, “ Pikers—-that’s what they are,” he per- sisted. ‘ Don’t let this run of bad luck the ‘little ones are having get under your skin, Corvan. They can’t pit their brains against the law, that’s why they fall. They pull a boner. They play into the hands of the time. Little fellers! Bone- heads! Pikers!” | “ And the Stone outfit was pinched last Corvan’s voice was cool, but he consitexaks QO CO