Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

n THE CONFIDENCE MAN. | 653 peel 1rorty thousand off him just like it was his overcoat. And honest! My good gosh! That bird has a good plain bunco steerer up against the ropes and gasping for breath when it comes to playing the suckers. “ Why, he’d take a bum nickel out of a ‘baby’s china pig, and he don’t care if it’s his own baby. Why, it would be a benefact to huminity to lift a few of the yellow- backs off that old geezer.” . “ Forget it,” advised Corvan. “Why, listen, chief—what d’you think of a guy that ’d play a deal like this? This Humphrey has a son—see? A guy named Albert; he’s by the first wife, and the luck- iest, because she cashed in first. “This Albert goes and takes a wad ‘of money that his mother le’ : him and marries a girl whose father takes the cash to buy a set of D. T.’s and knocks off as a result. All right. ‘What does the old boy do? He trots round to sonny’s humble cottage, tells. him he’s married a gold digger who ain’t any better than’ she might be, and says he ain’t any son of his no more. “Well, the son’s got sp-rit—-see? says a mouthful,’ he tells the old man. ‘You ‘T ' ain’t no son of yours, and if you come round this house again I knock you for a row of barbed wire entanglements.’ See? And the old boy beats it, and his wife, too, I wouldn’t put it past him. “ Anyway, this Albert changes his name ’ to Trench—Albert Trench—and when he gets a kid of his own, he won’t even let the old man see it; which don’t worry the old man a whole lot, ’cause when’ the kid gets older it turns out he’s bugs. Crazy as a loon. “ That’s the kind of burg you're livin’ in now; and that’s the kind of people this old Humphrey is. Gosh, you could strip him down to his hide, if you used lots of soap, and you’d be doing the country a service.’ But Corvan was unmoved. ‘“T’ve told you how we stand,” he said. “ These people down here are not people as far as we’re concerned.. They are just part of the scenery.- You're a bright boy, Snake, but we’re not working. Not down here.” Ccasm. Maddox regarded the future with unadul- terated dissatisfaction. ‘You mean we settle down in this dump like we enjoyed it?” he demanded. Corvan frowned. ‘‘ Well, don’t we?” “No, we. don’t.” ‘Then, play as if you did.” Maddox was to learn the meaning of that deep, cold tone which Corvan now used. “ Acting is the essence of successful con. Learn to act.” “Not me! Not Snake Maddox! I got a reputation for slipping out of trouble. Watch me slip on the night train. I blow on the seven twenty-eight.” “Not to-day you don’t. forget that a lot of boys of your age would be glad to have such a nicc home as this. Settle down, my boy. Be domesticated.” “Aw, cut yer kidding! me in this dump for a summer. All sand and a bunch of hicks. I wouldn't have come, only for the chance it gave me to perform. Oh, boy! ' The practice a guy could get! I could sell ’em the bay to plant oysters in! And not a dick in sight!” His eyes glistened. Corvan frowned. He’ appreciated the worth of Maddox as a henchman, and was sensible of the need for a companion in ‘what would no doubt be long days in this isolated spot. When a man possesses such a deep seated contempt for humanity as Corvan’s profession had developed in his fine and not unphilosophical mind, the so- ciety of another of his own sphere is almost the only society tolerable. Corvan had already divined that the youthful Snake would provide him with amusing company; he did not relish the thought of his departing. Besides, there was the Snake’s essejitial usefulness to be considered. - “Son,” he said, “ stick around. We've got to lay out bigger things than the selling of gold bricks to the brainless. If you’ve got the brains, that’s what we need. You might have some ideas that will.earn you a share of the pot.” Maddox smiled, unconvinced: . “That sounds -good,”. he said with sar- “Wade told me that you was the smoothest thing that ever turned a trick. You seem -to You can’t keep. JOO COMNNMUC S C@